I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
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@alexadeswift @alice wait, so what counts as "just" harassment then? is there ever harassment that doesn't make someone feel fear? should i not be thinking of these as different? /gen
Under British law, if someone takes any action towards you which causes you to feel fear, that is common assault. If there is a sexual element to it then that is aggravated.
Under the Harrassment Act anything that would not constitute assault is harrassment, but you need at least three recorded incidents in the Log.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice Admittedly, I haven't gotten out of the house all that much since actually cracking my own egg. But I definitely have a few instances of harassment I can remember from my "I'm a cis guy" "Uh huh, whatever you say sir" phase.
The sheer number of Uber/Lyft passengers that would play with my hair, for one thing.
And then there was that one guy at a Circle K/Valero station that did not appreciate me ignoring his cat calls.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice My little sister tried to seek help to stop my stepfather from sexual abuse. Nobody believed her, not school personnel (even with mandated reporting, if the next words out of their mouth is "I have to report this, so you better be sure", most kids clam up or retract because they know they're not going to help you), not even my other siblings.
Then she tried telling me. I believed her on the first attempt. This does not make me a hero, don't praise or star me, please. This is what men need to understand, this story isn't about me. (Keep reading.) I also won't tell her story before that point, it isn't mine to share.
But my stepdad, after several failed stints in rehab and physical abuse on the rest of us, that was the last day he was in our family; he drew a pistol and threatened killing her, then turned it to all of us before the police arrived and took him into custody. Thankfully he was ultimately a coward, he didn't fire a single shot and surrendered. (This went down in the 1990s. He also was cheating on my Mom and had a kid with another woman while playing a drunk game of "daddy" with us, which also came out in the trial.)
What scares me is if I didn't act: knowing what he was capable of since that day, she would have been in grave danger if I left her alone with him. She may have been killed if she did something wrong, and he'd try to hide her, or run from it. After all, that gun was there all along. One bad day is all it takes.
My point: Believe a woman when she says she's in danger. Don't wait. Because if you dismiss her, you don't know if she can survive what's next if you are wrong.
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@stephaniepixie @alice I had a woman tell me recently that her parents made her wear a bra at home because her dad is there. HER DAD. 🤯🤯🤯
@irene wtf?
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@alice I started getting sexualized when I was 10, my first instance of grooming was at 12 (or maybe 13? Its blurry.) As an adult, I would be harassed on the streets daily.
It all stopped when I started taking T.
@damonology @alice I'm glad to hear it stopped for you on T but as a transmasc genderqueer person who cannot medically transition due to health reasons this isn't the case for me.
So yes, men get SA'd too, especially trans men/mascs who cannot transition. Idk op that inb4 was kind of crappy.
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@damonology @alice I'm glad to hear it stopped for you on T but as a transmasc genderqueer person who cannot medically transition due to health reasons this isn't the case for me.
So yes, men get SA'd too, especially trans men/mascs who cannot transition. Idk op that inb4 was kind of crappy.
imo this whole gender divide btwn who has it worse, men or women, is pointless and causes us more infighting than necessary especially because (micro) aggressions towards men will always shunt the trans man & other vulnerable men first instead of the white cishet male overlords you're thinking of (and, you know, their trophy wives who just as readily put on the boot). Also it's incredibly binarist why are we reinventing gender roles but trans
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@alice in my case, I'm transfeminine, came out at age 34. I don't have any memories of CSA, but I don't have very many memories of my childhood in general, and some of my trauma responses would suggest that something occurred along those lines. (I don't identify as a CSA survivor, to be clear, because I don't want to speak over those who are sure about their experiences.)
as an adult, though, I've had some experiences both pre- and post-transition that I've reluctantly come to recognize were, absolutely, sexual abuse.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice I was 17, a long time before I came out as trans.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice I was aged 10... I don't have the words to say on main the severity, the frequency, who was involved. It is nothing short of harrowing.
I still cry for that 10y old.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice Shit, I'm really sorry...
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember -
@vex I did not ask for nor want your attempted psychoanalysis, particularly when I'm trying to convey something personal.
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@damonology @alice I'm glad to hear it stopped for you on T but as a transmasc genderqueer person who cannot medically transition due to health reasons this isn't the case for me.
So yes, men get SA'd too, especially trans men/mascs who cannot transition. Idk op that inb4 was kind of crappy.
@ghostprince
My reading of the "inb4" is more to do with the fact that whenever someone is talking about the disproportionate amount of sexual harassment/assault/etc that femme presenting folks experience, there's often a comment about how "men experience it too, therefore..."That sort of comment often proceeds to invalidate, diminish, or even shame the OP for relaying their experience instead of using it as a basis for solidarity.
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@ghostprince
My reading of the "inb4" is more to do with the fact that whenever someone is talking about the disproportionate amount of sexual harassment/assault/etc that femme presenting folks experience, there's often a comment about how "men experience it too, therefore..."That sort of comment often proceeds to invalidate, diminish, or even shame the OP for relaying their experience instead of using it as a basis for solidarity.
The proportion is the same, under-reported on men's side due to societal stigma.
Is men going "hey, we experience this too" not also a call for solidarity? Why is this call being ignored? Because a specific class of men decided to run rampant with power, we should ignore those pleas for community?
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The proportion is the same, under-reported on men's side due to societal stigma.
Is men going "hey, we experience this too" not also a call for solidarity? Why is this call being ignored? Because a specific class of men decided to run rampant with power, we should ignore those pleas for community?
@h3mmy @damonology @alice speaking as someone who is visibly femme. I call out abject anti masculinity that directly affects marginalized men when I see it.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice Same. Any femme presenting person I’ve ever met who trusted me enough to talk about it has at least one such story. And it seems the majority of them also have a coercive/controlling partner in their past too. It’s horrifying.
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I've never met a femme-presenting¹ person who didn't have a sexual harassment/assault story.
Most have one from within the past week.
My most recent harassment was yesterday (but I haven't really left the house yet today, so there's still time).
My first sexual assault was at ~13².
¹ InB4 some guy hops in to remind us all that men get SA'd too
² that I remember@alice
Hi, my name is Faith. Now you have. -
@alice I don't. I agree with your general premise, that's it's a overwhelming and horrific problem that is egregiously common. And given how most say it's worse as a teen, I avoided it by femme presenting much later.
I only mention this because it's a weird feeling when people talk about this kind of thing as if it is a universal fundamental femme experience and where does that leave the few of us who are fortunate to have dodged that bullet?
It's better than the alternative but also othering.
@ellesaurus when I said "never" I suppose that comes with some qualifications.
However, for each qualification—like, say, over the age of 4—I know an exception.
So to say "never" is really to say, "for every person I know, the odds of them having been sexually harassed or assaulted approaches 100% over time, but it approaches 100% far faster for the femme-presenting ones."
Also, I'm sorry for othering you. I understand that (even fucked up) rites of passage are still rites of passage, and I didn't mean to diminish your femininity with my choice of language.
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@alice My little sister tried to seek help to stop my stepfather from sexual abuse. Nobody believed her, not school personnel (even with mandated reporting, if the next words out of their mouth is "I have to report this, so you better be sure", most kids clam up or retract because they know they're not going to help you), not even my other siblings.
Then she tried telling me. I believed her on the first attempt. This does not make me a hero, don't praise or star me, please. This is what men need to understand, this story isn't about me. (Keep reading.) I also won't tell her story before that point, it isn't mine to share.
But my stepdad, after several failed stints in rehab and physical abuse on the rest of us, that was the last day he was in our family; he drew a pistol and threatened killing her, then turned it to all of us before the police arrived and took him into custody. Thankfully he was ultimately a coward, he didn't fire a single shot and surrendered. (This went down in the 1990s. He also was cheating on my Mom and had a kid with another woman while playing a drunk game of "daddy" with us, which also came out in the trial.)
What scares me is if I didn't act: knowing what he was capable of since that day, she would have been in grave danger if I left her alone with him. She may have been killed if she did something wrong, and he'd try to hide her, or run from it. After all, that gun was there all along. One bad day is all it takes.
My point: Believe a woman when she says she's in danger. Don't wait. Because if you dismiss her, you don't know if she can survive what's next if you are wrong.
@sefr thanks for sharing. I hope you all are doing okay now.
Statistically the time between deciding to flee an abusive relationship and getting to safety are the most dangerous for the victim. Their odds of death rise dramatically.
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@alice I don't. I agree with your general premise, that's it's a overwhelming and horrific problem that is egregiously common. And given how most say it's worse as a teen, I avoided it by femme presenting much later.
I only mention this because it's a weird feeling when people talk about this kind of thing as if it is a universal fundamental femme experience and where does that leave the few of us who are fortunate to have dodged that bullet?
It's better than the alternative but also othering.
@ellesaurus @alice You know those assholes in Washington currently trying to legislate our bodies, objectify us, turn our existence into a "fetish", and use us as political scape goats?
that's a form of sexual harassment/assault, just probably not the more direct kind you are envisioning.
Even if you escape the more direct and personal assault, you can't really exist as a femme presenting person in North America without incurring the abuse of patriarchy directed at your body.
