TW: Sexual Assault
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am genderqueer, but was assigned male at birth and was raised that way.
The first time I was sexually harassed, I was 16 years old. I was participating in my town’s Relay for Life event, a 24-hour relay run intended to raise money for cancer research. I was a late bloomer, but this was shortly after puberty struck me so I was well into my glow-up.
A pair of 30-something women took notice. Every lap I went past them, they would whisper or leer a little bit more. In the moment I didn’t think too much of it, since receiving any kind of attention was still totally foreign to me. Until one of them reached out and squeezed my ass. I tagged off the track to let one of my teammates cover for me and went for a walk to clear my head. This was the kind of attention that I had been told my whole life I should be happy about. But I didn’t feel happy, and the difference between expectation and reality left me confused. Men were supposed to like this. So why didn’t I? I have never recounted this experience to anyone, not until now. For a long time, I didn’t consider it a legitimate instance of harassment, because even if it was unwanted, that was something men were supposed to want.
This was not the last time something like this happened to me, nor was it the worst. In a later instance, when a woman coerced me into sleeping with her, I actually did tell one of my friends what happened. She said, “But men can’t be raped.” It didn’t feel right to me, but at the same time everything I had learned about sexual harassment and assault up until that point supported what she was saying. For a while after that I thought I was just supposed to suck it up, to “rub some dirt in it” and move on.
While women were responsible for some of those instances of sexual misconduct, the event that left the most lasting damage was caused by two men, J and R. J and R were in the same program as me in the University of Victoria. While we didn’t spend any time together outside of class, I still considered both of them my friends. They were also friends with someone else from the department whom I had previously dated. While our break-up was anything but clean, we were on friendly terms with each other by that point and had largely reconciled.
At some point when J and R were out drinking with this person, either through their coercion or her own volition, she shared a naked picture of me. She was so far gone at the time that she did not remember exactly what happened, but I believed her when she told me there was no intentional malice on her part. She was in a particularly bad place at the time and probably really did not remember it.
J and R shared that picture with people within my program, along with the rumour that I had sent it to my ex unsolicited. This went on for over a year before the rumour found its way back to me. During that time, the rumour and the picture had become synonymous with my name to the point that people who had never met me knew about this. I have been informed that J and R were still laughing about doing this a year after the fact.
Eventually, the truth came out. When my friend learned what they had done, she immediately tried to fix the situation. She has been away from Victoria for the summer when all of this began and had no idea what people were saying, so when she found out she was pissed. People began calling J and R out for what they had done—and the two of them immediately threw my ex under the bus. They claimed the whole thing was her responsibility and divested themselves of any consequences. And now, as of this writing, there are still people whom I used to call my friends who believe J and R’s version of events, both men and women—including people who participated in #MeToo and shared their own experiences of harassment and abuse. I do not understand why J and R are more credible sources of information to these people.
It does feel telling that people were quick to pick up whatever version of events these two men spun. They were popular, and they were often the life of the party. I think because of that, and because they were the only people presenting a version of events people were likely to believe, people believed them. Even after finding out about it, I kept quiet. In fact, I almost dropped out of school. I couldn’t bear the fact that people thought I had done that, or that they saw such a vulnerable part of me without my consent. And when my ex began telling people differently, it was easy for them to disbelieve her. After all, they had been hearing for all that time that she had intentionally shared the picture with them. On some level, people might have just not cared how the situation affected us. It wasn’t their problem.
Please do not misunderstand me here: I am not trying to co-opt this movement or to twist it from its original purpose. I am not trying to paint abusers as having no agency due to societally imposed expectations. But I also understand that a lot of abusers are not monsters. Most of the people who have hurt me in the past did so because of a lack of understanding of consent and clear communication, not out of a desire to cause pain and trauma. Just as I have been on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour, I am sure I have been the cause of it, too. I have done my best to be conscientious of any situations where someone might be scared or uncomfortable and to fix the problem, but that doesn’t mean I was successful at it, or that there are not instances I missed. I refuse to put myself above that possibility. I have worked very hard to remedy any of these situations that I have been made aware of, and I honestly believe that trying our best to show empathy is the most important thing that anyone can do to change our culturally-learned attitude towards victims of harassment and abuse.
All of us have the capacity to learn and self-analyze and try to improve. All of us are capable of holding ourselves accountable for our actions. And if we can’t or won’t do that, then someone needs to hold us accountable to them. It can be really appealing to side with our friends when someone accuses them of doing something, and there are some cases in which they are in the right. After all, sexual abuse might be frighteningly common, but someone we personally know and care about could not possibly be responsible for something like that. Right?
While healthy skepticism is a good thing, blindly supporting the people we know in the face of accusations against them is absolutely indicative of rape culture and the gender concepts fostered by it. The voices of survivors matter, and deserve to be believed.
Recognizing the constraints of our toxic patriarchal culture and how it twists the way we view narratives is only the first—and the easiest—step. If you are interested in doing the same, a good way to start is by examining your own behaviours, and being aware of how you make the people around you feel. If you know someone who is a survival of sexual abuse, believe them. Let them you that they can trust you. And be willing to call rumours to question; drag them into the light and learn the truth. It might seem silly, but one small rumour can ruin your life. Personally, I am through being a victim, and I am through letting people get away with their shitty actions.