How to Spot a Predator Just by Looking: A Guide

While politicians with no better ideas for how to keep hoarding their power try to distract us by frantically pointing at the easiest-to-spot scapegoats, the real Predators keep dressing up in their own versions of drag. 

Rather than divas or kings, they cosplay as parental figures, spiritual leaders, teachers—anyone you might reasonably trust to behave responsibly around kids. 

They button their collared shirts, tie their ties, slip on their sensible shoes, donning whatever the accepted uniform is for Respectable Figures in their field. This way, we won’t question their intentions until they give us a reason to, or rather several reasons, because Respectable Figures (usually men) continue to be given the benefit of the doubt long after they’ve un-earned it. If they don’t look like a Perverted Weirdo on the outside, they’re probably not. Right?

Well, except for all those priests, coaches, school principals, cops, media execs, camp counselors, politicians, scout leaders and parents who did turn out to be preying on children, on people with less power than them, on people who were entrusted to their care. And they did it all in their Respectable Figure uniforms. 

What made those mostly straight or straight-passing cisgender men Predators is not the way they uphold conventional standards of Masculinity. What made them Predators is some deep pain inside that they feel entitled to take out on others. It’s tragic, and we all deserve better than a society that doesn’t teach men how to process their emotions in constructive ways. But there will always be hurt people who seek to hurt others. And those people will keep donning the masks and costumes of traditional gender roles and trusted figures, because they know polite society will ask very few questions before granting them access to power, people, and praise.

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At its best, Masculinity is grounding, activating, courageous, beautiful, necessary. But somewhere along the way, we placed it on a pedestal above all else, shielded it from accountability, and stopped asking it to grow or evolve. We confused Masculinity with integrity, which is neither masculine nor feminine but human, and we gave it too much credit. The bad guys keep riding the coattails of the good guys, and we keep letting ourselves get duped. To assume someone is “good” because their outer expression matches our assumptions of what “good” looks like is wrong. 

The thing is, we don’t have to understand or agree with someone in order to honor their humanity. There is potential for both good and bad inside all of us. Whether we cause harm, cause healing, or have a neutral effect has more to do with the choices we make than with “who we are,” and it’s rarely a straight line in either direction. To assume someone will cause harm because a particular belief system condemns them or because their outer expression doesn’t match societal norms is wrong. 

Life would be so much simpler if we could tell whether a person is likely to harm others based on what they look like or their sexuality or whether they’ve been entrusted with a position of power, but history and current events alike continue proving what terrible judges of character we can be. That’s why we have to fight back against these mindsets that attempt to categorize entire groups of people—people with all different backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, etc—as “perverted” or “predatory” or “groomers” based on unfounded assumptions. 

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If this is a free country and you’re innocent until proven guilty, that means all of us have the right to live freely without suspicion of malintent or wrongdoing until we’ve actually, demonstrably done something wrong. But the people in power know they don’t need evidence of malintent or wrongdoing to create suspicion and fear. Just characterize something or someone as “strange and unusual,” and the fear will develop on its own.

When faced with fear of something that does not pose an immediate threat, we have two choices: interrogate the fear or take it at face value. 

Interrogating the fear may lead us to discover that this supposed Boogeyman is something else entirely, just another facet of the human spirit that’s been here all along. You might realize that this facet does not pose a threat to you after all, but is in fact worthy of celebration for the way it brightens the overall human experience.

If we choose to take the fear at face value, that fear may grow over time into a sturdy handle that can be used to pull us in whatever direction the people in power want society to go. That direction will benefit some of us in some ways, but it will mostly benefit them. They know that, if they can motivate us through fear, we won’t ask too many questions or go looking for a different, better direction that would benefit us more. You might end up running so fast from the monster they said was chasing you, you won’t have the energy to question where this path is heading. Where similar paths have led in the past. Whether the monster was even chasing you to begin with.

No group of people should be treated as a monolith that's poised to cause harm, unless they clearly and unanimously state beliefs with a proven pattern of leading to harmful behavior. Drag performers do not deserve this fear and suspicion. Trans people and the parents of trans kids do not deserve this fear and suspicion. Gender conforming straight men have repeatedly earned our fear and suspicion, and still I believe each and every one of them deserves the benefit of the doubt. Because they’re fucking human, and humans deserve to be treated like humans, even when our vision starts to blur them into monsters. Especially when our vision starts to blur them into monsters.

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We've been on this slippery slope before, right? We know where it leads. It starts with dehumanization. “Those people are different from us, they must be evil. Those evil people have bad intentions, they must be monsters. We must not allow those monsters’ voices to be heard, their votes to be cast, their businesses to remain open, their art to be seen, their culture to be celebrated in public—else they might take over our society, influence our children, force us into their ways.” 

Gradually, an entire group of people (a relatively small group with relatively little power) becomes a Problem that must be Eradicated. Eventually, those in the highest positions of power will expand the group to include anyone else that might threaten their vision for an ideal world or challenge the righteousness of their positions as Those Who Decide What’s Best for the rest of us. 

Right now it’s trans people and drag. Who do you think is next? Reproductive rights have already been gutted, with several states going much further than banning abortion. In my home state of Arkansas, a law aiming to prosecute any person who “causes the death of an unborn child” could criminalize women who miscarry. The Tennessee house passed a bill that would threaten marriage equality for same-sex, inter-faith, and interracial couples by allowing anyone to refuse certifying a marriage based on religious beliefs. In June, a board of managers selected by the Texas State government will replace the democratically elected school board of Houston ISD, a majority Hispanic and Black school district. The Mississippi house recently passed a bill that would deny a majority-Black community in Jackson to elect its own judges, opening the door to a modern-day Jim Crow era. The Supreme Court will soon hear a case that could dismantle the sovereignty of Native tribes.

All over the country, constitutional rights are being honored and expanded for some groups of citizens while they’re debated and restricted for others. Legislators use fear to manipulate us and distract us from the truth: We’re all part of the same thing. There are no mistakes here, only tragic misunderstandings and distortions. We can’t let fear of the unknown warp our vision and stunt our capacity to have empathy for those whose lives we can’t directly relate to or understand or even ideologically approve of. We can’t let concepts of the afterlife prevent us from standing up against hatred that causes real, demonstrated harm to our fellow humans in this life.

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If you value this country for its freedom, democratic process and opportunity, now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to set aside which groups you belong to and stand for the equal rights of all. Because if you don’t speak out when they come for the “others,” there won’t be anyone left to speak out when they come for you. I don’t make that reference lightly.

Please don't let fear of others' opinions stop you from shining your light into the darkness of all this hatred.

The world is so much more beautiful when we’re allowed to freely express the full spectrum of colors inside of us. We're missing out on so much joy and love and color. We don't have to.