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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
canmom

[trigger warning] Two sad and terrible truths that are not mutually exclusive:

kiriamaya

  1. Rape survivors are often disbelieved. When a survivor comes forward, it’s usually their word against their rapist’s, and if their rapist is famous or well-liked or whatever, that means they (the survivor) will be accused of lying. I speak from experience when I say that this is one of the most horrifically painful experiences a person can go through, almost as bad as the rape itself.
  2. One of the main tactics of the enemies of trans women, fundies and radscum alike, is to accuse us of being rapists. Doesn’t matter whether or not they have evidence; they’ll just make shit up, twisting both logic and the definition of “rape” to justify their claims. You see this in bathroom exclusion policies, “womyn-born-womyn” spaces, “not my shower” and “protect our children” rhetoric, demands to put trans women into men’s prisons (where they will more than likely be raped), and so on.

As others have been saying, both of these are simultaneously true. It’s not either-or. It’s both-and.

And that makes me cry, and want to break.

kiriamaya

Old post (I really wish I’d written “TERF” instead of “radscum”), but still relevant. (Also, hey, remember when MRAs tried to hijack this post and make it about cis men? That was fun.)

canmom

this fucks me up every time unclear accusations of abuse come out against trans women bc i do not know how to distinguish ‘survivors are afraid of coming forward’ and ‘transmisogynist smear campaign’. to get it wrong either way has horrific consequences.

in this regard, the stereotype of trans women as predators serves not only to destroy innocent trans womens’ lives but also to provide a cover for actual trans women rapists and abusers who are able to mobilise the actually-justified fear of making a false accusation to protect themselves.

vague insinuations of abuse can be, and are, used as a tactic of abuse in themselves. porpentine’s account in Hot Allostatic Load shows what a horrifying effect this often intra-community tactic of abuse ends up having. unlike cis men, who can be forgiven for just about any level of abuse by their friends and fans, trans women tend to be in communities which have - for reasons that make a lot of sense, based on so many peoples’ experiences as survivors of being disbelieved and assumed to be maliciously lying - a policy of believing accusations and expelling the accused. which is of course incredibly easy for an abuser to exploit.

one point i’ve seen made is that false accusations are basically almost never a thing for white cis men, but they can be a thing for groups which have an established stereotype of being universally predatory, such as Black men (many lynchings were based on false accusations of rape of white women) and trans women. of course, that doesn’t mean that trans women can’t actually be rapists and abusers, though unlike the stereotype, afaik usually their victims are other trans women. (since trans women often have nowhere else to turn, it’s incredibly easy for abuse to take place in trans womens’ spaces).

i have no fucking idea how to resolve it. what actually ends up happening a lot of the time is that you get a split into two bitterly opposed cliques of trans women, one group of whom believes the accusation and believes the others are shielding a rapist, the other of whom thinks it’s transmisogynist lies. often this falls along lines of who’s friends with who. (it was a situation like this which partly led to the end of the original “baeddel” clique on tumblr.)

doing nothing is of course always to side with the oppressor. using forces of transmisogyny and disposability to remove lifegiving community from trans women, and putting them through the trauma that Hot Allostatic Load describes, because they became inconvenient to the powerful members of the community is abhorrent. shielding rapists and abusers from true accusations by the people they hurt, and therefore allowing them to abuse more people, is equally horrifying. every so often an abuser will be named and expelled from the community, but abuse continues.

i don’t know how to solve this but it’s going to keep destroying peoples’ lives and abusers are going to continue to thrive and we’re going to further and further traumatise each other, and it does my head in.

thetransintransgenic

Would it maybe work to act differently to each party? Like, to err strongly on the side of believing-the-victim when dealing with the claimed victim – in terms of providing sympathy, possible counseling if you’re in that position, etc. – and erring on the side of skeptical when dealing with the perpetrator.

I guess, though, this runs into problems for, like, trying to look for evidence (to correctly be skeptical for the perpetrator) in front of and/or from the victim (which implicitly disbelieves them, at least a little).

Also. like. this doesn’t give any guidelines for how to deal with third parties. Which. like. is the bigger thing.

canmom Source: kiriamaya rape mention cw abuse mention cw
thetransintransgenic
thetransintransgenic

(Well, that’s already gotten a larger response than I thought it would…)

thetransintransgenic

jewishdragon replied to your post:  (Well, that’s already gotten a larger response…

I HAVE 3.8K FOLLOWERS GADIT

Do I or have I ever looked like I have a firm grasp on reality, especially in a medium where contexts collapse with only slightly less frequency than quantum probability waveforms in the memespace.

thetransintransgenic

(Also, like, it’s already >2/3 of the way to the total number of notes that the Hard Natural Philosophies post got – and you actively poked that one towards a (much more popular?) Popular Blogger, and the more politically #Opinionated of my followers haven’t even seen it yet.)

thetransintransgenic
thetransintransgenic
thetransintransgenic

(Well, that’s already gotten a larger response than I thought it would…)

thetransintransgenic

jewishdragon replied to your post:  (Well, that’s already gotten a larger response…

I HAVE 3.8K FOLLOWERS GADIT

Do I or have I ever looked like I have a firm grasp on reality, especially in a medium where contexts collapse with only slightly less frequency than quantum probability waveforms in the memespace.

thetransintransgenic

Look you guys I don’t mean to be rude but you have all been doing a FREAKING TERRIBLE JOB of referring to the price increases, coverage losses, and other failures that will fall out from this as “Trumpcare”.

Like, you think it’s a coincidence that they named it the AHCA? It’s a deliberate attempt to hijack the “people actually like the ACA when you call it that”. So don’t let them steal that: “Trumpcare, which is tearing down huge amounts of the ACA, was just shoved through by a slim majority of House Republicans.”

Trump cw
jewishdragon

House Republicans just passed Trumpcare. So what’s next?

reincepriebus

Things this bill does:

  1. Only covers 5% of people with pre-existing conditions.
  2. Exempts Congress from the worst parts of this bill, though they say they’ll fix that.
  3. Lets insurers once again put annual and lifetime limits on coverage for people with employer plans, effectively ends Medicaid expansion, leaves gaps in benefits, threatens Medicaid home- and community-based services for people with disabilities, and more.

The bill goes on to the Senate, where many are saying it’s dead on arrival. Regardless, we need to send a message to House Republicans that they’ll pay for their “YES” votes by losing their seats. Here’s what you can do:

  1. Use Contacting Congress to find out who represents you in the House.
  2. If your representative voted “YES” [here’s the list]: Use Contacting Congress to call their office and tell them you disapprove of their vote.
  3. Whether your representative voted yes or not, do the following:
  4. Donate to SwingLeft’s campaign to raise funds for Democratic challengers to the 35 swing district Republicans who voted for TrumpCare.
  5. Use Town Hall Project to find out if your representative is holding a town hall during recess. So far, only 6 of the 217 are.
  6. Sign up to volunteer for SwingLeft and/or check out Indivisible Guide for more actions for you to take.

After you’ve done that, you can contact your Senators. Use the same website listed first above (Contacting Congress) to find your two Senators. Give them a call, show up at their town halls, and donate to their Democratic opponents if they indicate that they’ll vote for TrumpCare.

The only way we’re going to take down this bill is if we keep the pressure on the GOP and let them know that voting for it will result in them losing their seats.

  1. Find out if you’re registered to vote. If not, find out how to.
  2. Here are some answers to some questions you might have about registering.
  3. Student voters: This is for you.
  4. What to bring with you to the polls.
  5. Click here for more voting information, and to find out who’s going to be on your next ballot.

Special Elections coming up:

Most other midterms are November 6th, 2018. Get ready.

jewishdragon Source: reincepriebus Trump cw