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TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of Sexual Assault and Abuse. \u00a0Transphobia, Victim blaming.<\/b><\/p>\n
These are all my own experiences as a Survivor of physical & sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
Holidays are rarely good for me. \u00a0Where other folk spend time with their families, I am left with solely bad memories of the people I grew up with. \u00a0Long before the rise of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, there has been a strong belief that women cannot be sexually abusive to others. \u00a0Women are seen as carers, nurturers, Victims, not perpetrators – if they are\u00a0\u201cbad\u201d then it\u2019s only ever as emotionally or financially abusive, never physically or sexually abusive. \u00a0People who readily believe me when I speak of the men in my old family, and how they hurt me, rarely believe me when I say similar things about my sister and her female friend or my mum. \u00a0Once I ran away from my old family, I\u2019ve been pretty open about my experiences, but this refusal to even acknowledge women can be abusive, is incredibly painful and stops me sometimes from seeking help or sharing my experiences. \u00a0Acknowledging women can be sexually abusive isn\u2019t a way to put women down or pass the blame: it\u2019s a way of \u00a0believing survivors and what they say when they talk about painful things.<\/p>\n
Something I read on Twitter recently made me despair: \u201cWomen can\u2019t rape, because women don\u2019t have dicks!\u201d*** \u00a0And other tweets along the lines of trans women are really men, hell bent on sexually abusing women and girls. \u00a0The fact that these kind of statements often come from other women, is the icing on the cake of wretchedness.<\/p>\n
1: Men don\u2019t have to pretend to be anything or anyone else in order to sexually abuse others; they will just do it if they want to.<\/p>\n
2: Perpetrators of sexual abuse don\u2019t need to have a dick, when they have fingers, bottles, handles of hairbrushes or anything else insertable.<\/p>\n
3: Trans women are women. Some are abusive, and some are not, just like any type of human.<\/p>\n
Transphobia only adds to the silencing and dismissal of survivors of sexual abuse, but this problem was there long before the addition of trans folk to the argument. \u00a0I\u2019ve been called a liar for saying anyone in my family could be abusive, because\u00a0\u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen to black kids**\u201d. \u00a0There is such a desperate push to mantain the narrative of abusers solely being men, that it railroads over the experiences that take such bravery to talk about in the first place. \u00a0I wish my mum and my sisters had not sexually assaulted*** me, but they did. \u00a0i wish I wasn\u2019t forced to run away from my old family and everyone I knew, but I did. \u00a0and 26 years later, I wish I didn\u2019t have to deal with people who deny and dismiss the things that almost cost me my life. \u00a0But I still have to.<\/p>\n
** I gave this horrible quote as the title to my first zine, on surviving child abuse. https:\/\/writteninshadows.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/01\/surviving-csa-zine.pdf<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n *** In the UK, non-consensual sex between women is defined as sexual assault, not rape. \u00a0Other countries have different definitions, so please don\u2019t generalise or use this as a way to derail survivors. \u00a0Whatever it is called, it\u2019s still a terrible thing. \u00a0<\/p>\n