More than a decade ago, when I was playing surrogate mommie via internet to a troubled youth I dubbed Genevieve, she shared with me an online book called "Mom, I need to be a girl." It tells the story of the transition of a MtF trans youth who had an unusually supportive family.
Daniel became Danielle (probably a pseudonym) and late in the story Danielle is on some kind of overnight school outing that involves sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor of some building.
The kids spend lots of time talking and when it it is time for lights out, the grown ups in charge want the girls and boys to separate and sleep in different parts of the room. One kid speaks up, emboldened by the wonderful conversations the kids have been having, and says they are gay and asks with which group they should sleep.
The grown ups don't quite know how to respond and then Danielle speaks up and explains she's a MtF transsexual, probably pre-surgery. With that, the grown ups threw up their hands and let the kids stay in a group in the middle of the floor the way they wanted to do.
Genevieve glommed onto me in part because she had been sexually abused as a child. I was also sexually abused as a child and I'm recovered, which seems to be fairly uncommon.
Sexual stuff is a private matter. It's easy to get stuck with baggage you don't know how to ditch. It can be hard to know whom to talk with. There seem to be relatively few good resources on such topics.
Most of the literature and most resources seem to default to assuming that the victim is a cis het female and the abuser is a cis het male. There are inadequate resources for cis het girls to recover and the story gets dramatically worse if the person in question is male or gay or trans.
Women are often very angry about what happened to them. If you have been abused sexually or sexually assaulted and you are male or a transsexual, the way some of the resources are framed can be openly hostile to your own ability to relate to them as the victim in need of support.
You may feel like you are being accused and assumed to be a rapist because you are not a cis het female. It can feel like it just adds to your baggage rather than helping you.
The world is pretty bad about acting like women are the victims at all times, men are the perpetrators, all women are innocent and all men are guilty.
I've been on Hacker News since July of 2009. When I joined, polls showed it to be about 98 percent male.
It's probably less skewed than it was back in the day, but it still skews male. I post as openly female and I seem to be the most "prominent" openly female member there -- or perhaps just the most notorious.
I have always been willing to discuss topics on Hacker News like rape and recovery from rape with anyone who seemed to have a genuine, sincere, respectful interest in the topic and not some lurid interest in using it as an excuse to try to chat me up.
I have at times gotten feedback that there was something wrong and weird about a woman doing that on a predominantly male forum. In the worst case, I was attacked by someone who had a track record of positioning themselves as a trans ally.
It made me wonder where you are "supposed to" draw that line.
Are women only allowed to talk to other women about it? Do we need to ascertain sexual orientation beforehand and gay women can only talk to gay women and cis het women can only talk to cis het women and MtF trans individuals can only talk to other MtF trans individuals?
There is a dearth of good resources in this space and I seem to be a better resource than average. I long ago decided that I would draw no such lines based on irrelevant details like gender or sexual orientation.
I only draw the line at people trying to misuse the topic as a means to take advantage of me in some way.
It's something I have thought a LOT about over the years and I'm very clear on my position, but this is the first time it is being said publicly because I'm well aware that broadcasting it is a good means to attract assholes pretending they have some legitimate need to grill me about the details of the abuse I endured and weirdo, sick stuff of that ilk.
I talk less than I used to on forums generally and on Hacker News in specific about topics like sexual assault. I mostly try to channel such impulses into this blog and similar projects.
If you have some problem with a woman talking with ...whomever...about this topic, let me suggest you are a speed bump holding up progress and I wish you would get the hell out of my way. Please and thank you.
Daniel became Danielle (probably a pseudonym) and late in the story Danielle is on some kind of overnight school outing that involves sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor of some building.
The kids spend lots of time talking and when it it is time for lights out, the grown ups in charge want the girls and boys to separate and sleep in different parts of the room. One kid speaks up, emboldened by the wonderful conversations the kids have been having, and says they are gay and asks with which group they should sleep.
The grown ups don't quite know how to respond and then Danielle speaks up and explains she's a MtF transsexual, probably pre-surgery. With that, the grown ups threw up their hands and let the kids stay in a group in the middle of the floor the way they wanted to do.
Genevieve glommed onto me in part because she had been sexually abused as a child. I was also sexually abused as a child and I'm recovered, which seems to be fairly uncommon.
Sexual stuff is a private matter. It's easy to get stuck with baggage you don't know how to ditch. It can be hard to know whom to talk with. There seem to be relatively few good resources on such topics.
Most of the literature and most resources seem to default to assuming that the victim is a cis het female and the abuser is a cis het male. There are inadequate resources for cis het girls to recover and the story gets dramatically worse if the person in question is male or gay or trans.
Women are often very angry about what happened to them. If you have been abused sexually or sexually assaulted and you are male or a transsexual, the way some of the resources are framed can be openly hostile to your own ability to relate to them as the victim in need of support.
You may feel like you are being accused and assumed to be a rapist because you are not a cis het female. It can feel like it just adds to your baggage rather than helping you.
The world is pretty bad about acting like women are the victims at all times, men are the perpetrators, all women are innocent and all men are guilty.
I've been on Hacker News since July of 2009. When I joined, polls showed it to be about 98 percent male.
It's probably less skewed than it was back in the day, but it still skews male. I post as openly female and I seem to be the most "prominent" openly female member there -- or perhaps just the most notorious.
I have always been willing to discuss topics on Hacker News like rape and recovery from rape with anyone who seemed to have a genuine, sincere, respectful interest in the topic and not some lurid interest in using it as an excuse to try to chat me up.
I have at times gotten feedback that there was something wrong and weird about a woman doing that on a predominantly male forum. In the worst case, I was attacked by someone who had a track record of positioning themselves as a trans ally.
It made me wonder where you are "supposed to" draw that line.
Are women only allowed to talk to other women about it? Do we need to ascertain sexual orientation beforehand and gay women can only talk to gay women and cis het women can only talk to cis het women and MtF trans individuals can only talk to other MtF trans individuals?
There is a dearth of good resources in this space and I seem to be a better resource than average. I long ago decided that I would draw no such lines based on irrelevant details like gender or sexual orientation.
I only draw the line at people trying to misuse the topic as a means to take advantage of me in some way.
It's something I have thought a LOT about over the years and I'm very clear on my position, but this is the first time it is being said publicly because I'm well aware that broadcasting it is a good means to attract assholes pretending they have some legitimate need to grill me about the details of the abuse I endured and weirdo, sick stuff of that ilk.
I talk less than I used to on forums generally and on Hacker News in specific about topics like sexual assault. I mostly try to channel such impulses into this blog and similar projects.
If you have some problem with a woman talking with ...whomever...about this topic, let me suggest you are a speed bump holding up progress and I wish you would get the hell out of my way. Please and thank you.
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