WOW, this is a true eye-opener. I'm appalled at the behavior you've been subjected to from cishet women, and I speak as one myself. When I read your (grabber) headline, I felt immediate resistance, but after reading the whole article it's clear why you feel this way. The only thing that makes sense to me is what you point out above. It makes me think about what Isabel Wilkerson discusses in her illuminating book "Caste," as well as Heather McGee's "The Sum of Us" (both about racism and its toxins that affect all of us, but much of it applies here) — especially regarding "second-place-ism" in which those on the lower rungs of any caste system are the most threatened by the "ranks" below them and can be the most vicious about keeping them in their place.