Personal Experiences with Rape Culture

tw - sexual assault, rape, rape culture, abuse, cissexism and anti-trans hate

gynocraticgrrl:

Radical and Skeptical: TW for rape and abuse - Have trans* women seriously started harassing lesbians on the Internet for not likin penis?

fallingtomadness:

I’ve been beat up by a chick I once l “dated” because when she told me she was pre-op trans on the second date and while trying to hold back a panic attack, very calmly said “I have issues with male genitalia. Is it ok if we don’t get intimate genital-wise until you’re post-op?” and she went off on me, yelling at me saying I should enjoy her penis because its a part of her. I told her I understood that and explained that it’s only our second date. 
I explained that I’m a rape survivor and that I was raped simply because I turned a man down for a date, saying that I like girls, and ever since, male genitals make me have panic attacks.
She didn’t like this, yelled some more, hit me, then threatened to ruin me. Thankfully I never heard from her again.
Im sorry I don’t like your current genitalia, it’s nothing personal. All lesbians have a right to this mindset, rape survivors or not, because guess what lesbians like? Women. Biological women. I’m sure you can find someone that doesn’t mind and can look past it, but if someone can’t, it doesn’t mean she’s transphobic, it doesn’t mean she hates you, it doesn’t mean she needs to die, it doesn’t mean you need to harass her.

Ok, I agree with all of this and I’m reblogging here because not respecting people’s boundaries and/or trying to force people to push beyond their boundaries is ALWAYS terrible and this is definitely a rape culture thing.  Screaming at someone and beating them up because they have panic attacks over penises is appallingly awful and expecting someone to just get over trauma like that because you want them to is a serious rape culture issue that needs to not be happening.  Harassing people is never ok and nobody ever deserves to be harassed for any reason.  Beyond that, abusing a trauma victim/survivor when ze has just revealed this incredibly personal bit of information is atrocious beyond words.  But I still want to call out the binary and ciscentric language and the blatant cissexism here because that shit is equally awful and NOTHING makes that ok.  

If a penis is on a woman then it’s not male genitalia, it’s her penis, it’s a woman’s penis, it’s woman’s genitalia.  Just like if a vulva is on a man it’s not female genitalia, it’s his vulva, it’s a man’s vulva, it’s male genitalia.  The only person who get’s to define those body parts is the person who has them.  Not you, not anybody else, just that person.  So no, lesbians don’t like “biological women” and saying that is really fucking cissexist.  If you prefer vulvas on your sexual partners that’s fine, we’re all allowed to have a preference, but it’s not that you prefer “girl parts” it’s that you prefer vulva and you don’t like penis.  Those body parts are not inherently tied to any one sex or gender.  Being sexually assaults, raped, abused, beaten, or any other sort of violation does NOT give you an excuse to be a cissexist asshole and start defining people’s body parts for them.  NOBODY gets to do that, that’s fucked up.  People have the right to choose how they define their own bodies and their own body parts.  Having panic attacks from penises doesn’t make you transphobic but you’re clearly a cissexist douche for reasons that have nothing to do with your fear of penises and you need to spend some time reevaluating your language and the ways you relate to other people.