"This got me thinking more about identifying as a rape victim in public. One of the reasons I told my boss I didn’t mind everybody knowing was because I want everybody to think about rape when they see me. This is what a rape victim looks like. I want them to know that. I am a complex individual full of talents and abilities, and I want them to know that rape victims file papers, speak to judges, wear bad shoes, refill the coffee pot, call the repair people, eat their lunches. I want them to think about how many other victims they’re surrounded with and they don’t know. I want to be the antidote to the only depiction of rape victims most of us are going to get, which is either the secret hidden porno in the middle of a movie, or the horrifying image of a woman’s crying, contorted face on a rape “prevention” poster. Rape victims get up and walk around and look like everybody else. They fucking have to. They are there when you talk about Polanski. They are there when you make rape jokes. They are there when you use rape as a euphemism for “did a good job.” I don’t get to forget that, and I don’t think anybody else has the right to forget it, either." -HJ, @ Fugitivus
Two things:
1. HJ's really turned me into an anti-rape advocate. I think she's done it single-handedly. I've read some other things, on the feminist blogs I frequent, but HJ's both humanizes and explicitly explains what it's like being a rape victim and coping with that to a remarkably vivid degree. It's still surprising to me, though, that when I think of my counseling interests: domestic abuse, depression, gender identity/LGBT issues, self-esteem, and rape counseling, rape counseling is the only one I don't have immediate personal experience with. It may be because my father was a rape victim, and I largely consider the miseries of his (and, consequently, my family's) life to be related to that. But it's also so vividly sexist, so vividly hurtful, so vividly crushing that I can't help but feel compelled. I'm not certain of many things, but supporting gay rights, destigmatizing mental illness, and bringing down rape culture are things I'll defend to pieces.
2. I want to do what HJ describes above, but for trans people. Of course, I think it's only something I could do if I was really comfortable with myself/my body/my presentation and identity, and I don't know if that'll happen. But if it does, I want to be out and open. I want to normalize transness, just as many homosexual folk have increasingly normalized gayness. My counselor, a lesbian, once said someone told her that her very existence would cause others "cognitive dissonance." The fact that she existed, in other words, was enough to fundamentally challenge the worldview of others. And I want to do that. In fact, I want to be a cognitive dissident (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). Not in a "SO ANGRY ALL THE TIME TRANSMASH" kinda way, but with an assertiveness about my identity that causes people not only to question the gendered way our society is structured but for people to question their own gender presentations. That's my kind of activism: actively existing as a political statement. And I think that's what HJ advocates in the quotation above.
Two things:
1. HJ's really turned me into an anti-rape advocate. I think she's done it single-handedly. I've read some other things, on the feminist blogs I frequent, but HJ's both humanizes and explicitly explains what it's like being a rape victim and coping with that to a remarkably vivid degree. It's still surprising to me, though, that when I think of my counseling interests: domestic abuse, depression, gender identity/LGBT issues, self-esteem, and rape counseling, rape counseling is the only one I don't have immediate personal experience with. It may be because my father was a rape victim, and I largely consider the miseries of his (and, consequently, my family's) life to be related to that. But it's also so vividly sexist, so vividly hurtful, so vividly crushing that I can't help but feel compelled. I'm not certain of many things, but supporting gay rights, destigmatizing mental illness, and bringing down rape culture are things I'll defend to pieces.
2. I want to do what HJ describes above, but for trans people. Of course, I think it's only something I could do if I was really comfortable with myself/my body/my presentation and identity, and I don't know if that'll happen. But if it does, I want to be out and open. I want to normalize transness, just as many homosexual folk have increasingly normalized gayness. My counselor, a lesbian, once said someone told her that her very existence would cause others "cognitive dissonance." The fact that she existed, in other words, was enough to fundamentally challenge the worldview of others. And I want to do that. In fact, I want to be a cognitive dissident (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?). Not in a "SO ANGRY ALL THE TIME TRANSMASH" kinda way, but with an assertiveness about my identity that causes people not only to question the gendered way our society is structured but for people to question their own gender presentations. That's my kind of activism: actively existing as a political statement. And I think that's what HJ advocates in the quotation above.
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