la violette pensée

A cis woman sexually assaulted me a couple of weeks ago.

This just came to mind during a conversation on Facebook, and I realised I need to tell people about it.

A couple of weeks ago, during the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, I was in a lesbian bar (Sisters, of course) with a couple of girlfriends, and we got involved in a casual conversation with two or three women next to us in the way that bar patrons will often trade tidbits about what’s on telly, or so. One of the women came up to me and very slyly made a remark about my body that left no doubt that she was cis and that she’d clocked me while she surreptitiously put her hand in my crotch just to satisfy her curiosity. I was wearing a short dress as a long top that falls just below my crotch over a pair of jeans.

I was so stunned by her behavior that my brain locked up, and since we were on our way out the door, the moment was over before I could even react. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, as I was walking down the block, that I realised what she’d just done, and the feelings of violation hit me like a ton of bricks.

I said nothing to my girlfriends, and I’m not sure if they saw it happen, but I haven’t been able to talk about it until now, when commenting on one of Pam Spaulding’s posts, where the subject of white people touching black women’s hair without consent came up. Here was what I said to preface the above remarks:

”I can sympathise. My Asian heritage has blessed me with skin that is very smooth compared to that of many of the white people I have known in my life, and it sometimes induces people who should know better to reach out and touch, and as a trans woman, people too often have laid their hands on various aspects of my body without consent or warning to assess their veracity, if you take my meaning.” 

I couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. I was so embarrassed and ashamed, and after that night I’d blocked it out, until just now, when the memory was triggered. 

To all my so-called “radical”, but actually reactionary, cisgender/cissexual political pretendbian lesbian cultural feminist chaser admirers who love to claim so often that trans women are by definiton dangerous sexual predators, go fuck yourselves. Cis women are just as capable and culpable of sexual assault as any other class of people, and trans women are the victims of these types of sexual assaults by other women far more often than you will ever understand or acknowledge.

To the woman who assaulted me, if you ever read this: You know who you are, and you had better hope you never come within my reach ever again, because if you do, I promise you, I won’t freeze.