we hear you

Jun 25

Sometimes hatred & violence can feel so overwhelming & loud that solidarity + support can sound like a strained whisper in comparison. But we need to remember that the abusers & upholders of rape culture & oppression of every kind count on us mistaking their noise for numbers. The truth is that they’re loud but small, in comparison to the amount of people out there who support us & are rooting for us & putting in work in our movements. & above all, we aren’t alone in this. We have each other & we need to be good to each other-our abusers are the only ones benefiting from it when we tear other survivors down.

That being said, while I believe in reminding survivors (including myself) of our resilience & the support we have for our movements, I also feel it’s important to take time to acknowledge how exhausting it is trying to survive not only our own traumas but to survive the violent backlash of doing advocacy work. This is one of those times for me, because this is all so heavy on my heart right now. When one survivor is attacked, my heart bleeds for her/him/them as an individual, & also for the impact this violence has on entire communities.

I’ve been doing advocacy work for 11 years now & I have yet to meet a single survivor who has shared their story on a scale/platform of any size in any context, who has not had at least a few people calling them a liar &/or blaming them for what was done to them. The men (it’s usually men doing this, with some exceptions) also often decide to make it their personal mission in life to “expose” the survivor as a liar & to violate their privacy & pick apart every detail of their trauma, & often invent outright lies about it to be like “aha! I caught you in a lie, you keep changing your story!” … when in reality, he is the one spreading misinformation & lies about their story. & then trying to use that to discredit them. They often go after & harass & sometimes even stalk the journalists who investigate & report our stories too, & our other public supporters- this happened in my case. It’s nauseating to see people get harassed just for supporting & believing survivors.

It begs the question, who stands to benefit from perpetuating an atmosphere of hostility & intimidation for anyone who dares to speak out about abuse they’ve faved? What kind of person benefits from that, aside from other abusers & predators? I can’t think of anyone else who would, & it’s come to no surprise to me when in my case & so many others, many of the men who violently harass & stalk us are later exposed for being sexual predators &/or domestic abusers themselves. It doesn’t even shock me anymore. There’s a certain type of person, most often men who are emboldened by the relative anonymity of the internet who spend a great deal of time & energy trying to discredit & disprove every aspect of someone’s existence & identity- usually marginalized people, often women who are survivors of violent crimes. They stalk & harass us & fixate on trying to rip apart many aspects of our lives, but they tend to fixate particularly hard on trying to make others believe we are lying about being assaulted/abused.

Of course they don’t want us coming forward, because they fear their own victims may too. A common thread between many of these abusive stalkers & harassers is claiming that they’re trying to falsely discredit one survivor, to help “real survivors.” I’ve been on both ends of this, where abusive people have called me a liar & then also where others have used my trauma to try to discredit & hurt another survivor in the name of defending me- something I never asked them to do.

I immediately shut it down whenever this happens, & tell whoever not to ever use my trauma to try to discredit another survivor. & 90% of the time the person will then become hostile & abusive to me, the person they were supposedly trying to “protect.” I’ve also had people accuse me of lying in my most publicized rape, that had literal video evidence seen by many. Some have said that other victims of my rapists had it worse because they were younger & that I was old enough to have been able to fight them off if I really wanted to. One group of abusive men even doxxed & otherwise violated the privacy & safety of another survivor to try to use her trauma to claim I plagiarized her story because- get this- it happened the same year in the same state & we were both 14 & our attackers were close in age. No other details in our cases were the same. Because, according to these men, rape is supposedly rare in the state this happened to me in & there’s no way possible way two 14 year olds got assaulted the same year. (Their source- “trust me bro”)

I can’t even wrap my head around how someone could live such a privileged life to believe rape is ultra rare virtually anywhere, let alone here. I’ve been in contact with the survivor whose life they uprooted to drag into this bullshit, & although she’s been begging them to stop using her trauma for their bullshit slander campaign for years now, they refuse.

It’s very telling how these men never actually do anything to help the people they’ve decided are real true gold star survivors- in fact, they often actively take part in harm against them, like the survivor I mentioned above.

It’s difficult to even try to put into words what all is going through my heart & mind right now. I feel so much sadness & heaviness right now, both on a personal level & a community level. So many of the things going on in the world right now have me feeling so devastated & vulnerable to even more violence for using our power* & scared for the future of many of the people I love.

*I almost said powerless, but we do have power in some ways- we just are punished for using it.

Speaking of being punished for using our power (such as our voices/way with words) & other forms of fighting back- Something that has become a public eruption of the intersections of rape culture, violent misogyny, & victim blaming + slander on a mass scale is what’s been happening to Amber Heard for speaking out against a man with a track record for abuse & also for “dating” underage girls (like Winona Ryder when she was a minor) as an adult man. It’s been crushing to see.

Seeing the way so many people I thought were allies have responded to this case has been devastating & isolating. It hurts to see any survivor go through this, & it also sets a horrifying precedent for all other survivors to have to face increasing legal intimidation if we speak out.

Men who are victims of abuse deserve to be supported, & always have been in my own advocacy work. But for people to latch onto a very obvious case of DARVO just for the sake of virtue signaling to pretend they care about that issue (while doing nothing to help actual boys & men who have been abused) has been nauseating. Over the past few years I’ve seen more & more escalating misogyny from even supposedly progressive people, such as white men who think that they have a free pass to be misogynistic to white women while still being seen as progressive/leftist. & they’re widely supported in this behavior, which has been really gross to see. Amber Heard is wealthy & white, two privileged identity aspects, but those things were not enough to protect her from violent misogyny & oppression. No woman/femme/any other misogyny impacted person is safe, no matter what the other parts of our identity may & whatever privileges they may afford us.

Although I am not a celebrity, I know how utterly devastating it can be to be the victim of massive smear campaigns trying to discredit. I have had people with nearly a million followers- such as an Italian porn star who started conspiracy theories that not only am I lying about my rape at age 14, but that I’m not even a real person but rather an AI- just to name one example. When she was met with massive backlash from many people for her words, she then played victim & told her huge following that I was an abusive person who was likely going to hire someone to physically harm her. Which is a pretty mind boggling claim that would be comical in its absurdity, if her fans weren’t threatening me for it. She’s not the first or last person to demonize me for simply defending myself, as even the police in the only one of my rapes that I ever reported did as well & so have many of the people who took it upon themselves to punish me for speaking out & try to intimidate me back into silence both in person & online over the years.

I’ve been subjected to massive smear campaigns, as well as having my home address posted online, my dead family members mocked, & details of one of my sexual assaults made fun of in various media. I have had multiple discord servers & forums made dedicated to terrorizing, trying to discredit, & doxxing me & my family. I’ve had people try to pay my friends to give them my personal information, & strangers to try to befriend me to get it. I’ve had deranged videos made about me by stalkers, trying to discredit my trauma & making fun of the details of it, meanwhile someone who was in their abusive discord server claimed to have links to my abuse that were still online & kept threatening me with posting them- something that pushed me to a suicide attempt in fall 2020.

This individual was then shot to death a few months later for waving a gun at police during a mental health crisis- his own mental health struggles don’t excuse any bit of his abuse, but it is eye opening & a reminder that people who claim to take joy in hurting others are often some of the most miserable people out there. This individual would literally brag about how happy it made him to cause me pain & know he was making me feel afraid. He laughed at me for attempting suicide over his threats to put my abuse back online. He also accused me of the lying about the same trauma he claimed to have copies of- but I don’t believe contradictions like this are due to a total lack of rationality, but rather intentional gaslighting & mental abuse in most cases. Lundy Bancroft goes deeper into how most abusive men aren’t irrational or out of control but rather making an intentional choice to be abusive in his book titled “Why Does He Do That?”

All of this violent backlash & more, because I told the world about what was done to me in my own words- after growing tired of other people speaking over me about my own trauma for years.

My name as a hashtag has almost 700,000 views on TikTok because of other people making content about me without my permission, often spreading misinformation about my case or trying to use it for their own agenda, & every time another video about me goes viral, the comments are often filled with men either bragging about watching my assault at age 14, claiming they were one of the men who raped me when I was being trafficked in a separate but not totally unrelated part of my childhood trauma at an earlier age, asking for the links to my videotaped abuse, or claiming my lived experiences are a hoax or a lie. Many of these people will find my account from there & try to come harass me on my own page. Others will act shocked when I respond to their comments, & say they didn’t realize I was a real person who could see their “jokes.” I can’t comprehend that level of detachment for the impact your words have on other human beings. Even if I never saw those comments, you’re still putting poison into the air that the survivors in your life (& I promise there’s at least one whether you know it or not) have to breathe.

I’ve been threatened with libel lawsuits for speaking out about people who contributed to this continued abuse against me for speaking out. As retaliation for both speaking out at all & then for defending myself against this abusive harassment, *I* was then called an abuser & had to deal with my character being slandered & being falsely accused of all sorts of heinous views & behavior- as well as attempts to publicly humiliate me & my family, which also was done to Amber Heard in her case on an even bigger scale. Abusers get a kick out of doing this shit to us. I’ve even been sent screenshots of hateful misogynists saying that it makes them laugh to think of the possibility of my own attackers suing me for speaking out about what they did to me. What kind of person laughs at abuse?

I’ve seen some people say that Amber’s abuser had every right to laugh at her in court as she shared the details of what he did to her- because supposedly he’s a victim of her. What kind of supposed victim laughs at that? When I found out one of my traffickers was also raped as a child, I did not laugh. I cried, for the child they had been when they were violated like that. I never texted people fantasizing about burning & sexually assaulting their corpse, like Johnny Depp did to Amber. I can understand having physically violent thoughts against someone who abused you, but never sexual violence. There are justifiable reasons to physically attack or even murder someone- such as self defense or saving someone else’s life. There is never, under any circumstances, an excuse to sexually assault somebody. Sexual assault as self defense is simply not a thing. Never was & never will be.

It’s also been nausea inducing seeing supposedly progressive people turn a blind eye to the fact that the smear campaigns against Amber Heard have been funded by alt right wing media, like the Daily Wire.

I try not to terminate contact with people over differing views, because I want to believe others can grow & change. I’m not going to automatically hate someone, especially other survivors, for falling for heavy, well-funded misogynist propaganda. But what really gets to me is the way some people react when I try to have a rational discussion with them about this.

For those who are privileged &/or ignorant enough to think that this trial & outcome will have no bearing on other survivors, let me share one small personal example of how this type of thing dangerously radicalizes young men. A teenage boy I mentor, someone I’ve cared for as if he were my own child, cut off all contact with me for calmly laying out all of the evidence supporting Amber Heard & explaining what DARVO is in my instagram story, as well as quoting male victims who are devastated by the outcome of this trial. Before he cut off all contact with me, he send me a stream of extremely aggressive messages that projected wildly, accusing me of blaming a man in his life for being yelled at by a woman in his life. He said I was blaming this man. However, I never had said one word about this man in his life or claimed abuse can’t happen to men- in fact, I quoted in my original statement he responded to that many male victims have spoken out in support of Amber Heard. & that I take it just as seriously when boys & men are victims of abuse as I do when it’s any other gender.

But this boy was determined to stick to his story that I said something I did not, & then several days after this happened, another youth told me he was posting online about how I am a piece of shit who deserves to be burned- whether metaphorically or literally, I did not have the stomach to ask but the violence implied in that language is there regardless. How a teenager can go from thanking me for, in his own words, saving his life & being treated like part of my family by myself & my actual family members, to days later becoming verbally abusive & publicly talking about me being burned for expressing my thoughts on this case, is pretty horrific. To be called a piece of shit by someone who has never experienced sexual violence, for having thoughts on survivor issues that go against the mainstream propaganda, is hurtful in ways it’s difficult to put into words. Upon writing this, my family who saw me crying after being subjected to this & asked what was wrong, has now expressed concern that this 17 year old boy may retaliate violently against me for even speaking out about this in this blog post.

If you care about male victims, where is your support for men who have been abused by other men which is the vast majority of cases where a boy or man is abused? Where is your vocal support for trans men who statistically face more violence than cis men? Where’s the outpouring of support for the mostly male victims of Kevin Spacey? If you are so dedicated to calling out female abusers in the name of justice, why has Ghislaine Maxwell- a convicted sex trafficker of children- not been met with even a crumb of the hatred that Amber Heard has been?

If you are so committed to Justice, why doesn’t it matter to you that the jury on this case were not held to following basic standards to remain unbiased & able to give an honest verdict?

Amber Heard who watched in the courtroom as the verdict was read, said in a statement- “the disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women.”

“It is a setback,” the statement continued. “It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously.”

One of my sexual assaults was on camera & viewed by millions of people on PornHub who refused to remove it for over six months until I impersonated a lawyer as a last ditch effort (the highest viewed video had over 400,000 views & the others weren’t far behind) & yet I am still called a liar by a tiny but loudly abusive group of people- even some who have seen the videos, but have decided my screaming & crying must be “acting.”

When a couple of years after this I was then uploaded onto a revenge porn site called IsAnyoneUp (lewd photos of me combined with someone else’s nudes who looked like they could be mine, & it was claimed by the poster that they were me) When this happened, I even had some people who had previously supported me tell me that I must’ve been asking for my rape that was uploaded onto PornHub after all, since here I was taking revealing photos of myself a couple years later as a misguided attempt to feel some sense of control over my own body again. Sometimes some of our supposed supporters are very fickle & quick to retract their support when they don’t think we’re being a Good Victim, whatever they decide that means. https://twitter.com/RoseKalemba/status/1300539507398377473?s=20&t=9oBV0ve1Bi4EMcP4J29Gug

It doesn’t matter how much proof we have to someone who is committed to disbelieving &/or trying to silence us. Amber Heard has already successfully proved that he abused her in UK courts, but the people clinging to the bullshit US defamation verdict seem to selectively uphold a courts decision as righteous or not.

Even amongst the people who don’t outright vilify Amber Heard, I often hear things like “they’re BOTH abusive.” People don’t seem to realize that that’s not a thing, that abuse is dependent on one person overpowering another. Reacting to abuse is not abuse. Read that again. Not being a “good victim” doesn’t make you an abuser yourself. Defending yourself or even lashing out against your abuser, is not abuse. Context matters.

We still have such a long way to go, & now would be a really great time for more men to loudly show some solidarity with women & with all survivors.

we hear you

Inspired By My Haters <3

To Whomever It May Concern At Mastercard;

You belong here. ♡