Dear Nancy Mace

Dear Nancy Mace,

I see you. Bathroom warrior. Protector of women. Endless searcher of a new microphone from which to shout about your fears. About your concerns.

And I understand you.

I have those fears as well.

When my daughter excuses herself from the restaurant table to go to the bathroom and my first instinct is to ask if she wants me to go with her. This, of course, is met with the eye roll that only a daughter can give to her mother. And I know, she's a grown adult woman. She doesn't need me there holding the door. But...

I listen the whole time she's gone. One ear to the conversation at the table, one ear toward the bathrooms. Is that a shout? Is that a thump? I watch as people make their way around the restaurant. Is he a threat? Is he? How about her? Could she not be as safe as she looks?

I worry when we travel. I worry more when she travels on her own. When she and her girlfriends go to the beach for a quick summer vacation. I worry knowing she'll be stopping at gas stations and rest stops and who will be waiting in the bathroom for her? 

I understand that you are afraid. 

I'm afraid too. 

I'm afraid that a white woman with a national stage will announce that somehow where someone pees is a threat to the safety of white women everywhere. She might even cry a little. Look sad. Let one tear go down her cheek as she talks about being a sexual assault survivor. Protect me at all costs, that one tear says. 

But nobody asks if it was a trans woman who assaulted you. We don't need to because we know it wasn't. And yet...that tear. That don't question me armor you just put up...that target you just tied to the backs of women who are just looking for a place to pee.

You are the danger my child faces.

You and your hate and your microphone and your call to arms. 

I understand you. I see you. 

You're afraid of irrelevance and so you make your life about hurting others.
You're afraid if you actually had to have legislative accomplishments you'd never keep your job.
You're afraid that you aren't actually good enough. 

I see you.

I understand you.

I just don't like you. 

Signed, 
A mother who is afraid for her child.