Eat Their Hearts in the Marketplace
Big old content warning for sexual assault on this one. Please take care of yourselves.
I don't want to write this but here we are. If you haven't heard about the assault at Cornell University I suggest you educate yourself, especially if you are a cis man reading my newsletters.
If you are a sexual assault survivor, I see you and love you and hope you are taking care of yourself now and always.
The news tells us we should be afraid of trans women, especially in bathrooms, but I've never been assaulted by a trans woman anywhere. In fact they are the ones who provide comfort. There’s only ever been tears wiped away, gentle fixing of smudged eyeliner and lipstick, the determined reassurance that "you're too good for him, honey."
But cis men? More times than I can count. They see the calls in a chat and all of them ignore the right thing - the protection they all claim we need them for - except for seven who answered the call to participate in the assault of a drugged woman.
They assault with impunity FOR HOURS and are assigned essays as punishment. How does one write an essay like this. Do you title it: Leadership lessons from raping an unconscious woman?
Oh but we can't call them out. It's so UNFAIR to ruin their lives, their futures, their dignity.
What about hers? Her life. Her future. Her dignity. None of that matters. Not to the frat bros. Not to the Cornell University administration. Not to the right wing pundits now clamoring for access to her identity so they can do a new round of assaults.
Of my college friends, the five of us...three of us were assaulted, two of us got lucky. Does it matter to you which was which? Does it help distract you from the realty of those numbers? Does it change anything to know that total of us was at five before we were 30?
I saw the most damning statement on this whole thing - "Cis men don’t have to pretend to be trans women to assault us, they just pretend to be our friends."
My safety has never been at risk around trans women. I can't say the same thing about cis men.
If you’re reading this and want to say you're one of the "good ones" would you have saved that girl? 50 men on that group chat had the chance and every single one failed.
Think about that. Are you willing to stand up and say something even if it means you're the only one? I'll be honest, right now I think the answer is no.