Every day I live with the trauma of something that happened continually to me when I was a child. It has been nineteen years since the last time it happened. What happened to me contributed to me feeling suicidal, mental health problems, self harm and has also led to a lot of sexual problems. I’d say it’s probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me – and that is saying something. What did happen to me, you might be asking? Whatever it was, it must have been something horrific. Well that depends on how you look at it. To me it was but I doubt very much that society would agree as it has happened to almost every schoolchild in the land and is perfectly legal. So what did happen to me?
After PE at school I was forced to change and shower in front of teachers and other children. Nothing unusual there, one might think. “Everyone else has to go through the same thing” is a very common response. I remember saying something about how it made me feel to my parents when I was thirteen (I had left school by this time as I was taken out of school when I was ten and homeschooled for two years before attending a further education college). My mother told me I was a drama queen and then my parents said they had to do it and then proceeded to name the people we know who had to do it. I think a common view is that because it’s something that happens to everyone it isn’t that bad. But to me that just makes it worse – because it is considered normal and something the vast majority of schoolchildren still have to do to this day, when someone takes issue with this sort of treatment people just don’t see it as a big deal and they think they should just get over it. Another common response is that there are many people in the world who have had it worse than me.
One of these groups of people who have had it worse than me are people who have been raped or sexually abused. The trouble is that I feel that that’s what happened to me. I would like to apologise if this statement and paragraph upsets anyone, particularly if someone has been subjected to rape or abuse themselves. I’m not trying to play down or invalidate the feelings of victims of rape or sexual abuse. Indeed I think it is a horrific thing to happen to someone and nobody should be subjected to such a violation. Yet I often find myself thinking that I would have been better off had something like that happened to me than being forced to strip and shower in front of others. The reason being that rape is recognised as a crime. It is true that a lot of rape victims are not believed and as a result many rapists are not convicted and that is a serious problem. But when rape victims are believed, what happened to them is classed as a crime and even more importantly they are given the right support by society. Which is all I want. I’m not interested in getting vengeance on the teachers who forced me to strip in front of others anymore but there was a time when I did. I felt so angry about the fact I felt violated I wanted revenge on my teachers. When I was thirteen I made a false allegation of sexual abuse against my teachers to my parents. I actually used words like rape. They knew that it was a false allegation because they knew my feelings on this and they endorsed the regime of forced communal showers at the time. But I don’t see it as a false allegation because I feel that in a way I was sexually abused. Not in the usual way but in a way that isn’t seen as sexual abuse. But to me being forced to let others see my naked body felt like a sexual violation. As a result, despite still being a virgin at the age of twenty-nine, I’ve never known what it feels like to be a virgin. I know people often say society sexualises nudity and whether or not it does is another debate. But I had issues with my body from about the age of two so I don’t believe my issues had anything to do with society. A common view is that a child is not sexually developed therefore they don’t mind or it doesn’t matter if their bodies are exposed to others as they are not sexually aware. But I still knew at the time that something didn’t feel right and later began to see it as a sexual violation as I found out about sex. I guess I realised all this in the same way a victim of paedophilia would realise that they had been sexually abused.
The trauma of it was made worse by the fact that I’m transsexual. I don’t think a child has to be transsexual to be affected from what I was affected by but the reason I think being transsexual made it worse for me is that I had to expose a male body, including male genitals even though I had a female gender identity. But I find that even a lot of people who are open-minded and accepting of my transsexuality don’t seem to get why I would have an issue exposing my male body despite having a female gender identity. I find I get little understanding from both conservatives and liberals.
Conservaties see it as good for discipline and that it teaches children to obey authority even in situations where they feel uncomfortable. I have even read in some forums that some people think that boys behave better when they are made to wear less as they feel more vulnerable. They think it is character forming and turns boys into men. Whereas liberals wonder why one should hide their body. Whilst I can see the point of the liberals’ argument I think that it should be the individual’s choice as I feel if it isn’t then it is not liberal. I’d say one of the things I find hardest to convince people is that I believe that my wish to keep my body private is something inherent in me. A lot of people think that children not wanting others to see their bodies is not inherent but something they develop because of societies’ attitudes to nudity and I don’t dispute that this might be the case for some children. But I feel that my body issues are inherent because I had them from as young as two, well before society’s attitudes shaped me. Nobody ever told me I should cover up, only the opposite so I know that it wasn’t society’s attitudes that made me inhibited about my body but that was a natural inhibition. The fact that so many people dispute this makes me feel the way I feel on this is unnatural. People seem to think it’s innocent but this felt anything but innocent for me and I feel like I had my innocence stolen by having had this happen to me.
I have tried campaigning for more privacy in school changing rooms for the last seven years but with little success, though I have found a few more people who are in agreement with me on the issue with the help of the social network. Six years ago I told a friend’s father how I was writing to various organisations on the issue. He said he thought younger children shouldn’t have more privacy but that maybe older children should. Then he said that he wouldn’t have thought it would have bothered me. I said it does. To which he replied in an unsympathetic and flippant manner that when my friend came to look for me in the changing room I was dancing round naked showing off everything I’ve got as he put it. I denied this though it was true. But I didn’t do this because I was uninhibited – people could see me naked anyway and I guess I was just trying to take ownership of my own body because I felt like I was public property and that people could do whatever they liked with me. Another example of the attitudes like that displayed by my friend’s father is when I told my grandfather how it made me feel. He merely stated that children don’t mind doing it, not taking what I said about how I felt into account. He said that while some may be reluctant to strip the first couple of times, they soon get used to it. He then said that no-one else would have been focusing on me as they would have been concentrating on what they were doing and that the only way anyone would have taken any notice of me would be if I’d had two sets of private parts – he actually said something else but when I say he said “two sets of private parts” I’m actually toning down the language he used.
Even if other people were not taking any notice of me, it still bothered me because they could still see me naked and they could still see my male body. A lot of the problem also is that people seem to think you’re strange or even that there’s something wrong with a person if they feel this uncomfortable about letting others see them naked and I knew that if I refused to strip myself the teachers would have used force anyway. I previously experienced this a couple of times in infant school where pupils had to strip to their underwear for the duration of a PE session (a school for children aged 4 to 7 in the UK), once when a teacher physically removed the top half of my clothing by force and another time when another teacher started coming towards me as if she was going to do the same so I removed my top before she had a chance to do so. So I guess I felt that had I refused to strip the teachers would have used force and I would have had the added humiliation of everyone knowing my fears and them ridiculing me for them. But looking back I wish I had refused to undress in the presence of others because I feel that had I done so, even if they had used force and stripped me themselves I could at least have said I’d done all I could to stop them. Though I also feared personal attack by them as the teachers used to regularly hit me, kick me, pull my hair and were just generally violent which meant I never felt safe when they were around.
And at the time I thought I deserved everything I got because people used to say I did and that I was a bad child. I think what I really feared was going against authority. I had no respect for what they did and never understood why they did it but at the same time I was very afraid of what they would do to me if I refused to do as they said even if it was to defend myself. Basically, whatever the rights and wrongs are I felt at the time that even if they did expect me to expose my private parts to everyone in the room it didn’t matter because the point was they were giving the orders and if that’s what they told me to do that’s what I had to do. But I think whatever they did to me for refusing would have been worth it because of the psychological scars I have from having submitted to this. I feel like I was a coward for letting them do this to me.
But despite my feelings on how wrong I feel it was that I was forced to strip by my teachers, I do feel a lot of guilt for feeling this way and for making the allegations about my teachers that I did to my parents. I went through a lot of self-loathing and still don’t really like myself because whatever the ethics the teachers were only following procedure. It is still perfectly legal for a teacher to pressurise a child to undress in the situation I was in even if I do think it is unethical. I feel particularly guilty because had I thought I would be believed or I thought there would be no comeback on me I would have gone ahead with the allegation. Had I done this they could have got into serious trouble. Even when one takes into account that corporal punishment is now illegal in British schools it wasn’t in private schools at that time so whatever they did they weren’t breaking the law. The guilt I feel is compounded by the fact that given the same set of circumstances I would have probably made the same allegations I did at the time. Even then though, I actually wanted to tell the truth – that I felt violated by being forced to strip – but I knew that would not be taken seriously, which is what made me make the allegations of sexual abuse I did, including accusing them of things they hadn’t actually done. But I wanted to tell the truth because even if the allegations I actually made were believed, the teachers would have been punished for the wrong thing and the issue that I really did object to would never have been addressed.
I also feel a lot of shame about the way I feel because there is a stigma about feeling uncomfortable about being seen naked. I find whenever I’ve spoken on my fears people have often spoken to me as if there’s something wrong with me. Many people seem to think it is irrational to have an issue with being seen naked or that it means you are weak, especially in boys due to people thinking they should aspire to be macho, though I do think the stigma exists for girls as well. So I do sometimes feel I am irrational for feeling this way and that my feelings on the issue are abnormal and unnatural. I think children are expected just to fit in and obey orders even if it means stripping to their bareskin, exposing their most private parts to others and feeling violated as a result. They are supposed to ignore the fact they feel violated because they are first and foremost supposed to do as they are told without question. I often worry about what people will think of me for feeling the way I do and I particularly worry about how a future partner might think of me and whether or not he will understand.
My experiences of being forced to strip in front of others has severely entrenched the issues to do with my body that I already had. I feel the need to cover up from my neck down with the exception of my hands. This doesn’t bother me personally because even in the summer I can wear thin clothing so I don’t get too hot. But where it does impact on my life is that I am too scared to fly to India to see my relatives and also to pay my respects to some relatives who have died since I was last there fourteen years ago because there are now body scanners at airports. In the UK passengers are not allowed to opt out so if a passenger refuses to be scanned they are not allowed to fly. These scanners can see naked images of a person, including their genitals, which would mean they would be able to tell that I’m transgendered, though even if I wasn’t I would still see it as a violation. I do campaign against the issue and I have been admin of a facebook group that campaigns against the body scanners for two years and have also campaigned on my own facebook profile. A lot of people have been angered by my campaigning and some have posted abusive and transphobic language and accused me of putting air passengers’ safety at risk. The nudity issue aside, I do actually think there are more effective yet less invasive ways of ensuring airport security which is another debate but I do feel like I’m letting my family down because I don’t feel I can pass through an airport as long as they can force passengers through body scanners. I feel like submitting to be scanned so that someone can see a naked image of me would be like submitting to the teachers at school forcing me to strip all over again. I regret letting them do that to me more than I’ve regretted anything so I really don’t want to do the same thing again as I worry it will traumatise me in the same way what happened to me at school did and also that I will regret it in the same way. Since I was last in India some of my relatives have died. Had I felt I could fly I would have gone to see them before they died. The fact I didn’t feel I could is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life and I will probably always feel guilty about this. When body scanners became compulsory for selected passengers in 2010, all the old memories of being forced to strip at school came flooding back as I feel that I’m in exactly the same position as I was at school in that people have the right to see me naked, unless I don’t fly. I feel like I am reliving what happened to me at school because although I can avoid being forcibly stripped like I was at school, my sexual integrity comes at the price of me being ripped apart from my relatives and my not being able to pay my last respects to my deceased relatives. I am a very family minded person and we are a close-knit family so I see this separation as a very high price to pay. But I don’t even feel I’m making a choice, I just don’t feel submitting myself to something so similar to that which destroyed a big part of my life is even an option. I actually feel that I can’t go down that road again even if it means that my family is torn apart. But all I really want is to see my relatives I haven’t seen for fourteen years and to say goodbye to my loved ones who have died without the fear of being sexually violated. But I feel sometimes because society doesn’t understand or respect my need to keep my body private and never has, that that is too much to ask for.
I’m on a waiting list to be seen at a gender identity clinic that offers psychiatric services. I am hoping to discuss my body issues and how being forced to expose my male body to others has affected me and look at how to come to terms with it all. I’m hoping to learn to like myself more and learn to forgive myself for making the allegations against my teachers that I did. Rationally I do feel I did the best thing I could in a difficult situation but I still feel very guilty about it and that I’m just someone who goes round making allegations, which is not the sort of reputation I want.
I also plan to continue with my campaigning on the issue to get more privacy in school changing rooms and to raise awareness of the issue and the effects it can have on some people. I am of the belief that there should be laws against forcing children to strip in schools even if there are no private changing facilities available. Ideally I believe that changing rooms should be refitted so that children can change in private cubicles with a shower in the cubicle. Until or unless a school refits its changing rooms, pupils should be able to change in the toilets and PE lessons should be moved to the last lesson of the day, or at least later in the day so that pupils can go home and shower. But at the end of the day is the child’s body and no-one should have the right to violate it in this way except for when essential, (i.e. caregivers maintaining personal hygiene, medical examinations) and even then it should be done with sensitivity and consideration of the child’s feelings. Stripping in front of others to get changed for PE is not essential as there are alternatives. And for those like myself who have already been subject to this regime, I think more people in the teaching profession should admit that it was wrong that people were and still are put through this regime. There should also be more awareness of the issue to eradicate the stigma sufferers feel about seeking help with coming to terms with their experiences so that nobody has to suffer in silence.
I am very sorry about what happened to you. No child, no person at all, should be forced to strip down against their will. No matter what society thinks (society also thinks it is ok to smack a child), you WERE violated!
I could not agree with you more. No child or even a person should be made to show their body to their peers(or anyone). This should not have happened to you. I agree there needs to be private places for changing for children. It’s their body. This was a total violation of your privacy. I am so sorry this happened to you.
I agree with you. When I was at school we were all naked in the shower with a teacher either was in the shower washing with us all or standing at the opening to the shower fully clothed checking that we were all washing. Used to make comments about who has got the biggest of us lads which really fucked me off at the time. It is illegal for a man to be naked with a child not his own in a bed so what is the difference between that and a shower , seems logical. I suppose we have to thank terror mania for all the body scanners but that’s also rape of a kind. Rape is everywhere you just can’t always see it,
yes I know that ‘being ashamed of being ashamed’ feeling. for an introvert, sensitive person exposure is torture. Vaguely remember my aunt whacking me for being shy, oh the torture of iundressing on the beach ! whether one can DO much about it, dont know, except train oneself to care less ? NLP to reduce the painful memories – for that s what they are, painful memoiries.
Oh, gosh, my friend, i’m so sorry to read about all the trauma you had to go through. I also had an issue stripping and showing in middle school. I was lucky, our showers (even in 1970’s) we had separate showers for those students, including myself, that wanted to shower in private. I hated it..and i was a high school athelete, still hating showering naked in front of my peers. So glad to hear all the hard work you have put into getting this out to the atention of other, MIa. You go girl! :)
This is interesting, and more controversial than I’d anticipated on two counts. First, because of the titled issue itself; and secondly the false allegations of sexual abuse you made.
I sympathise with your feelings about your body, and the dilemma of feeling female but presenting, without choice, as male. I understand that by baring yourself completely you were exposing yourself as a male, and not as a female.
I can’t claim to understand fully why this has come to feel like a sexual violation for you. I agree that unwanted exposure can be embarrassing, and even traumatising – especially where the circumstances are ‘do this, or I will do it for you.’ However, I do feel that trauma over an inner turmoil that was not apparent to your teachers (or at least, you don’t say they were aware of your transsexual status) cannot strictly be labelled sexual violation. If they are ignorant of your personal position then they cannot accommodate your individual needs.
That doesn’t redirect blame to you – it removes it from all parties completely.
I think that campaigning for individual cubicles and showers at schools is approaching the issue from the wrong angle. You say yourself that very few people seem to understand your views on this matter. This highlights that your situation is unlikely to be common. Instead of campaigning for schools to spend money on cubicles that could instead be used on learning equipment, particularly for those with special educational needs, I think it would be best to try to increase awareness of transsexuals and transsexual issues in schools. This is a slower, and long-term solution – but far more effective, and far more likely to be implemented and be successful. Suggesting all PE lessons become the last lesson of the school day is a logistical impossibility: schools have several hundred pupils, often way less than five PE teachers, and changing room space for 30 or so pupils. We have to be realistic here.
The airport scanners topic is a slightly different issue, in that this carries different emotional charges for you. I admit I’ve never considered the issues transsexuals may go through when anticipating passing through such scanners. The way you write about this made me feel that you felt you were being subjected to a judgement. You also equated the use of these scanners to a sexual violation.
Whilst I can understand that being revealed as a transsexual opens up an individual for potential – but not necessarily actual – humiliation and abuse (after all, the operators are professionals, and should behave in a professional manner) I do not understand how the use of these machines amounts to a sexual violation.
Ultimately, the impression I get from this article is that you feel that any revealing of yourself results in a judgement of you by others. Yet society – that sweeping term – will make judgements about anything. Gaining confidence in yourself, and in your physical identity and being, may help you to put aside your fears of society.
But I do have some questions. You say that you feel guilty about your false allegations, and I think it’s clear that you do. You also seem to imply that your family stood by you on these claims, even though they knew them to be false. Given the seriousness of the accusations this is very difficult to accept as a reader. It’s even harder to accept as somebody who teaches privately and is looking to gain teaching qualifications to teach in schools. May I ask what you have since done to make reparations with the teacher(s) you accused? Have you spoken with the people involved, to explain your reasons and your situation?
The phrase “sexual violation” is highly charged. I appreciate that not all sexual acts require physical contact. I also believe that being made to do something we’d rather not can overstep a personal boundary. I consider this more a social or ethical infraction however, and not a sexual one. As far as I could see from your description there was no sexualisation involved. How does a passive observation amount to a *sexual* violation?
I have said for many years that since a child on his or her own, going into the bathroom with another is considered suspicion of child on child sexual abuse where I live by children’s services that we should NOT have older children in PE changing or showering in front of each other.My children are now homeschooled, but had they been in public school I would not allow such a thing. I am so sorry for your trauma and totally get your point of view and your feelings are absolutely valid.
I am so very sorry about what you had to go through as a child. In the U.S. in the sixties, when I was in school, we were not subjected to this in the early grades. Showers were required for ages 12 or so through 18. But by the time my own kids were in school, showers were no longer a requirement after PE. I don’t think my kids even had PE everyday, come to think of it. You bring to light some very valid points that need to be considered about the rights of children that are all too often overlooked. No child ought to be forced to do something which makes him feel so violated, against his will, in public like that, particularly in this day & age when we as parents are trying so hard to teach our children that their bodies need to be protected from abuse by others. Can you even imagine what the other parents would think if these same children went to a party at one child’s house & were running around without clothing? Keep up the fight. People need to be reminded to look at this from the child’s point of view, and you are an excellent advocate for children.
Dear Mia,
I think you are right, children’s need for privacy should be respected, whatever their reasons may be. It’s silly to consider it important for their growing up to be exposed like that. And for all those who don’t have a problem with it, let things be as they are, and for the rest there should be another option. And I don’t think it is too hard to organize, they could change in the teacher’s room for example or change before or after the rest of the class.
As for the body scanners, at least the ones over here in Germany (the discussion about the use of them is still ongoing) do not show the naked person, but a symbolic figure and a sign if the scanner has detected something suspicious. A lot of people had voiced concerns about these scanners, including some trans advocacy groups. Maybe things have changed over in the uk as well so you could be safe? Or you could travel by land to some other place (France or Belgium for example) and fly from there without having to go through body scanners?
I am also trans and when I read your story immediately (before you were mentioning that you are trans) I was thinking “well, for me as a trans person this level of being uncomfortable makes sense, but I don’t know how it can happen to a cis person”. I really think it completely makes sense to feel utterly violated in a situation like that: as a girl being forced to strip in front of a group of boys is a strong violation even if you don’t look like a girl and maybe even weren’t aware of the fact that you are one. Plus, exposing body parts that you are dysphoric about is highly uncomfortable. I used to be very private about my body before my transition. Now I don’t have a problem going to mixed saunas (naked), even though I now have a mixed body configuration that actually has the potential to cause trouble.
Anyways, I also often feel like I have been sexually violated without any knowledge of a proper incident of that sort and I think it has to do with growing up trans, even when I didn’t know about it myself. If you find out about how to better understand and process these feelings, maybe through your work with the gender identity clinic, I’d be very interested in hearing about it, since it is very hard to find out anything about that.
Wishing you the best for your future!
Tina
Interesting read. You clearly had an awful experience growing up, and I’m sorry to hear it – you have my sympathy. But overall, I’m with the Anon above here.
While you clearly had issues with nudity and privacy and still do, I think it’s worth recognising that most people don’t feel about their bodies the same way you feel about yours. Most children don’t feel that getting changed in front of others is a violation. I understand that you have good reasons for feeling that way, but I’m not sure it’s necessary to change a generally sensible policy to protect the feelings of a small minority. I would suggest that rather than ending communal changing rooms, schools should simply provide children with the option of changing in private if they object to them. (It’s possible that some children may also have religious objections to showing their body, for example.)
But I think describing communal changing rooms as a form of ‘sexual violation’ is seriously hyperbolic, and arguably offensive to people who have been victims of real sexual abuse. There’s nothing inherently violatory about taking your clothes off in front of other people, even if some such as yourself feel that way. It does depend on the circumstances, of course, but in this case I don’t think it’s particularly objectionable.
I guess I partly feel differently from you because of our different life experiences: I was brought up by naturist parents, and nudity was a normal part of my childhood. I don’t walk around naked in public, but I’ve never been afraid of taking my clothes off in front of others and I don’t think people should be – the human body is not something to hide or be ashamed of. It seems to me that if most children had a similar upbringing, we might have a much healthier attitude to our bodies. But I do understand that transgendered people like yourself are a special case, and have good reasons for disliking your bodies that go beyond the usual cultural attitudes towards them.
Even so, I think the personal issues you describe here are particularly severe even for a transgendered person, and I’m glad to hear you will be seeking psychological help with them. Refusing to use a security scanner because you’re afraid of people seeing your naked body is not a healthy or rational attitude, and as you say it’s clearly caused serious difficulties to your life. You need help, whether psychological, medical or both, and I hope that one day you have a body you feel comfortable with and are OK with other people seeing it.
Finally, you say that you falsely accused your teachers of sexually abusing you. Having read the story, I can somewhat understand why you might have wanted to do that. But I do hope you understand now just how seriously wrong that behaviour was. Sexually abusing children is almost the very worst thing a person can be accused of; such allegations once made are difficult to disprove, and they can destroy people’s lives and careers, and even drive them to suicide. Clearly, you felt violated, but that doesn’t justify the wrong you committed in return. I sincerely hope that you have recanted those allegations, and made it publicly known that they were false, and that no one suffered too badly as a result.
It is a very rare opportunity for me to say that I agree entirely with a persons reply, especially one that is longer than a paragraph… But I must say that I agree entirely. Forcing children to conform to her way of thinking would simply make them less secure with their own bodies, which is not something that should be supported. Your idea of a private area for those who feel uncomfortable changing in a communal changing room would work perfectly, and is a far easier (and better) solution yet has the same effect as raising awareness about transsexuals in schools.
Having known people who were sexually abused as children, and having seen the suffering they went to (and some who continue to go through), I took great offense to their comparison of the two. My degree is Criminal Justice, and I will be entering the police force soon… I could not imagine trying to tell a rape victim that their situation is comparable to showering with other students in high school.
I’m not telling a rape victim anything, I respect their experiences and I know of rape/ sexual abuse victims who respect mine. Our feelings and experiences are our own and everyone should have the right to tell their story as they see fit.
I am really sorry dear Mia for what happend to you.that was really irresponsible & cruel.
children need to get theire privacy & not only kids everyone of us,but for a kid thing like that will be
graved in her or his memory for the rest of life…but you are verry brave girl Mia to speak it out & louder,i really appriciate your courage & that will help you phsycologicaly to beat all those negative thoughts,& i’m sure you have beatten it……wish you all the best…keep on going,never give-up…..i SALUT YOU!
I completely relate to this. I have never been good with changing rooms my whole life, and i grew up in an institution where there was one bath for 20 folk, with no curtain, even around the toilet., and as a 12 yr old i was embarrassed and didnt bathe, so was known as stinky..the sister stood over me in front of everyone and made me bathe, told me what body parts to clean..the humiliation was bad…and it effected so much of my life, i was ostracised and never had a place to get away from ridicule…the sister loved making the other girls snigger at me..This damaged me, and I feel it was a form of abuse using the bathroom to further exacerbate my extreme discomfort at being seen by other girls, as I later realised I was transgender(well, I knew then, but did not have the language).
Great blog, thank you Mia.
I think forcing children to take all their clothes off in front of others is wrong, and in some cases the adult is enjoying asserting authority. I’ve never been forced to shower. When going in and out of swimming pool showers, one should wear a swimming costume. I do not consider showering after other sports is necessary. Clean clothes, and perhaps a good rub with a towel in sweaty bits should suffice.
When we felt uncomfortable about our bodies as teenagers we were good at changing without exposing too much, e.g. putting shorts on before taking skirts off, or having friends hold up a towel. We usually changed in groups, and wouldn’t look at each other in the group, and stood in such a way that people in other groups couldn’t see us.
More vulnerable children may need more privacy. Some girls did change in the toilets. However, children of all ages do not like to expose their bodies too much (being the only one changing is shameful), and adolescents are particularly embarrassed, because it is bad enough to have those changes happening, without showing everyone who hasn’t developed as much!
As for abusive teachers and false allegations, I think it is good to tell your parents why you are unhappy and uncomfortable (your teachers seem to have been bullies), and I hope parents will properly deal with a child’s problems, whether talking to the school, or removing the child from that school. False allegations lead to parents not believing, and children being marked by everyone as liars, even though children often tell untruths because they are not able or comfortable to explain exactly what the problem is.
I fully understand the comparison with sexual abuse here. As someone who has survived abuse myself I am neither upset nor confused by this comparison. The use of the word
rape is a word that does not need to be physical. During this horrific event that was repeated and became extremely terrifying to you your dignity and safety were raped. It was for you an abusive situation which you could not escape from. Having to cope with already being in the wrong body and sexually identifying as a female of course the male gender body parts that are not pat of who you really are would cause great shame to you. People need to be made aware of these issues and the very real consequences of not allowing children and teenagers to grow and and feel safe in school and public environments. It is difficult enough for adults to manage these issues but for minors far more psychologically disturbing. I applaud you for highlighting these issues and hope this blog can really help others possibly in the same or similar situation as yourself.
I think you’re a drama queen/king (whatever) with some serious mental issues. You don’t like your body? Tough shit. A LOT, and I mean A LOT of people don’t like something about themselves. Got a penis you don’t want? Lop it off. But crying rape on a teacher? That’s some bullshit right there. You know it now, and you knew it then.
You danced around naked and got caught by a friend, then lied about it, and you try to justify it by saying you were taking ownership for your body?? Gimme a break…try taking ownership for YOUR OWN poor body image, your own dishonesty, your own lack of responsibility to your body, and for the love of Pete, stop promoting your little sob story everytime you see a naked baby butt…it’s revolting.
Grow up, put your big girl/boy panties/boxers on, and take control of YOUR life…not everyone elses. Go get therapy and/or surgery. Go find God or Buddha or Oz or whatever you can believe in and figure out what makes you loveable, then love yourself.
In the meantime, you should (at the very least) answer everyones question: Did you recant your accusations in time to save the real victim the embarrassment and all of the other consequenses of your wrecklessness, or did you let the teacher(s) hang for a crime they didn’t commit??
In answer to your last question, I did say in the blog that the allegations I made were never made public, I only made them to my parents. But if you read the blog carefully, though I made false allegations to my parents at the time you will see that I’m not now actually accusing the teachers of doing anything they didn’t do and I’m sticking to the facts, I’m just saying that I think what they did do was a sexual violation. Some people think it is, some don’t. If I had my time again I would have refused to undress in front of them but I was too afraid to do so as they were very violent towards me and would constantly physically attack me and I think that people like this should not be allowed to work with children.
Your reaction is very different from everyone else, so it seems that, although others are able to either sympathize or empathize with Mia’s story, you are not. It seems you are feeling angry, and if so, is it because you are needing more security and respect? Have you been wrongly accused yourself?
I understand completely and cannot begin to imagine what you have gone through. I certainly don’t think you are irrational for feeling this way and You are 100% right, forcibly making someone undress is a violation of privacy and against human rights. I am completely behind you on your campaign and hope that one day you can find a way to get justice for the terrible things you had to go through as a child
I totally understand your trauma and agree that it is a sexual violation when it is against your wishes. yes many children don’t think anything about undressing in front of their peers and teachers, but they should be free to choose whether or not they want to bathe communally. like you I loathed having to share my naked body in school, fortunately i was not forced to do so against my will. The people that don’t seem to understand your trauma would do well to look at their lives and the times they have done things against their will or even worse been forced to do something against their will. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it makes you feel uncomfortable and goes against your desires it is an abuse, in some cases it can be shrugged off in others it can have debilitating effects as seen here. people shouldn’t be so quick to judge something they know nothing about.
No child sould ever have to go through this.
I really understand how you felt and you should never have been forced to expose yourself in a body to which you where not comfortable with. I will pray to god that he protects you and helps you through any dark moments you face over this trauma in your life. People have no right to force children to do what they think they should do leats of all expose their innocence to others.
God bless you Mia
Keith
There is nothing wrong with your feelings, they are perfectly valid. You should have never been treated that way as a child, and it took a lot of courage to come forward with your feelings. I strive to be more open about my feelings and opinions, it’s a work in progress. You have my support.
Congrats on recognizing such a violation. The tragedy is that so many children do not because they are so desensitized to following orders without questioning. I am shocked that so many people were confused as to why you would have objected to being seen naked. Perhaps it is a difference between the States and the UK- but when I was in school essentially all the children were uncomfortable being naked around each other. In the end, I enjoyed being naked in these situations just because everyone was so uncomfortable with it. I enjoyed they looks of horror on my classmate’s faces as I jumped from bench to bench naked. (at least until I began to develop breasts. Once I discovered binding I was right back to the nudity) Now I look back at this and feel bad for those kids whom I made so uncomfortable. It is a shame they didn’t have an option to not see others naked if it made them uncomfortable. All the locker rooms I used as a child had many individual stalls or shower cubicles which were used for privacy but there was still a general changing area and the showers were in large open rooms. I cannot imagine how awful it would feel to have some random adult stare you down until you removed your clothing at their order. The reactions you receive remind me of the way rape and molestation were treated 30-60 years ago; heck- even sometimes today. People saw women being used by men against their will as normal and wouldn’t understand why any women would be upset about it. Good luck in your mission of getting the word out about how injurious your experiences were- it can be a slow process but as it continues it will be like a snow ball: one day it will become an avalanche. Cheers in your transition, it takes a strong person to recognize such a part of themselves when the whole world tells you it’s not right. Part of bodily autonomy is allowing someone the right to define their body in a way they feel fits it, not based on an simplistic binary idea. There are many genders out there, and none of them have anything to do with a bodies appearance.
I read this with great interest. In my school, it was only the boys who had showers – the girls had to wait until they were home. The boys’ showers were shared. And men’s urinals – I wonder how many men prefer to go into a cubicle.
The only thing is that although you say you felt guilty for making false allegations of sex abuse, you don’t seem to comprehend the seriousness of this. You can ruin a man’s life with allegations, whether or not you have the slightest evidence. Thank goodness that your parents had some sense and the allegations were not pursued.
Body scanners – I hate the thought of them also, even if not for the same reasons.
Good luck with your campaign for cubicle showers, even if it does cost money. I think it is worthwhile.
Marj.
My boyfriend wouldn’t use shared urinals.
You had your sexuality and your autonomy violated. Very sorry to hear about this. :( I hope this practice stops, too. It’s wrong and the choice should be left up to the child, with the option of privacy available…
What puzzles me about your (MiaDotCom’s) story, is that as far as I can tell you never raise for yourself the question of what the root cause is of your strong distaste for being naked in front of others. You seem to take it as a given and take it as the basis for explaining feeling violated when you were forced to undress in public. You mention your transsexuality as a contributing factor, but that too — i.e. the transsexuality itself — you don’t seem to investigate any further.
Consider this sentence, for example: “But I had issues with my body from about the age of two so I don’t believe my issues had anything to do with society.” Okay, I don’t believe that either. But then where DO those issues come from? You are obviously gifted with considerable intelligence and the ability to self-reflect and articulate the results of such self-reflection. So why not turn this self-reflection around and investigate backwards, i.e. toward the root causes?
I’m not inviting you to invent or fabricate explanations for yourself, or to hypothesize or speculate — any of that would be counter-productive. I’m saying: the question is worth raising. Even if at this point you have no answer, it is valuable to be aware of just that, i.e. that this is unexplored territory in yourself, and for that reason alone it might be worth postponing any conclusions.
Nudity in other cultures:
I went to Iceland last summer, and the deal there is that people must shower naked before going in the swimming pool. Although most people changed publicly (in the single sex changing room), I found a cubicle, but that was partly out of habit and partly because I like my own defined space, rather than having strangers bustling past knocking my socks in puddles.
No chance for privacy in the showers though. Although the cubicles had partitions between them, there were no doors or curtains. I had a dressing gown, but the hooks were several metres from the showers. I have no problem these days with exposing my breasts, but I do generally feel unhappy removing my knickers. I took a good look round, then bolted for the showers with my costume. Nobody there is interested in eyeing up bodies, because they are used to it, but it was a different culture to me.
I agree with you entirely. I’m not transgendered so never had that to worry about, and I’m really sorry for what you went through. But even though I’m lucky enough to identify with the gender I was born with, I hated being forced to change. At primary school, we changed in the classroom, so I hid under the table to get changed. In secondary school, I did my best to keep as much of my body covered as possible. To this day, I hate getting changed/dressed/undressed around others, even those who have seen it before. My family, for example, don’t really care about nudity and we are known to move around the house naked from time to time. I don’t mind this, to me, that’s alright because it’s them. But to get undressed in front of them, I avoid. They don’t understand it. Part of it is because I have scars now, that I never used to have, but even before I had scars I had often been bullied for my appearance. I do my best to constantly remain as covered as possible when forced to change.
I wish they would change the way it is, because frankly, it isn’t fair. No one should have to strip down in front of others if they don’t want to, and especially not if they feel so badly about it that they see it as a sexual violation. No one should dismiss that, or say, ‘they don’t mind’, ‘it’s normal’. Whether or not anything is seen as normal, individuals are different.
I hope they change the rules. What you said about a body scanner worries me-I thought it was similar to an x-ray, not showing a naked image. I need to research that, because that seems a huge violation if it shows them what people look like naked.
Anyway, this post is hugely informative and well written, and I would like to thank you for writing/posting it. A lot of people don’t even consider all this, and it’s good to know that you are, and helping others to see the same. Thank you. :)
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