It Can Happen to Anyone, and You Have to Survive

It took me a while to get to a point where I wanted to write about this. That's why I haven't blogged in a while.

At 4:30AM, December 31, 2011, I was raped (I just now noticed the last blog entry is dated December 30. That night basically). This wasn't some random attack. This was a guy I had enough trust in to be alone with at his home. I had known him for around 6 years. We weren’t super close, but we were friends, or so I thought.

I’m not going to sit here and explain all the gory details of the event. The short version is we went out for dinner and a couple drinks the night before. We ended up at his house. Chilled some doing nothing particularly exciting. He decided he wanted something I didn’t want to give him, so he took it. Then I went home.

The first person I told was my best friend Carmen. After eating a slightly late birthday lunch with some family and acting like nothing was amiss, I went over to her place. I’m glad I did. She was amazingly supportive. She did all this spiritual healing stuff. We hung out & talked for a few hours. She made sure I was emotionally & physically comfortable. I felt safe and knew I was ultimately  going to be OK. I can’t begin to express how much I appreciate it all with a reasonable amount of words, but I’ve never had anyone take care of me on that level. I already had plans to go to my best friends’ Crystal & Jerry’s New Year’s Eve party. By that point I was functional & just needed to have fun with people who love me. I had to speed myself up a little due to lack of sleep, but I made it. I told Crystal at one point, & otherwise didn’t let it ruin my night. She was also nothing but amazing and supportive when we discussed it more after the party. I didn’t tell anyone else for a week, which is a while for someone who usually just throws it all on table no matter what.

When I came out more publicly about this, people were overwhelmingly supportive & even protective. The circle of great friends I have has made this all something I can heal from. I’ll quote what Carmen wrote on my Facebook page on January 7 because the post meant the world to me:

“I 'like' the fact You are BRAVE enough to sate Your violation. Rape is an act of violence. To empower the WEAK and corrupt of mind. Mine remains unsolved and has impacted Me to this very day and I swore I would treat anyone brave enough to ever 'come out' and talk about it ever happening to them as I wish I were treated. I give out what i expect back and kharma is real and so Is the love and care I showed and will continue to show You, Doll. The COWARD that hurt You will pay for his deeds and no one else will ever have to face that kind of shit ever again from the perp. I will always be there and Will NOT rest until justice is served or peace of Your mind is found. Rape is rape. No means NO. Friends mean being there. That is I did. A TINY act of humanity. There is no end to my apology on behalf of the world's debt This piece of trash owes You. You are strong, brave and deserve only the absolute best. 'Nuff said. ♥ s forever. Time heals almost all wounds. But wounds don't hurt perps;) As long as You are My friend, You are safe. You have a friend for life, like it or not!:)”

There were some who just stayed away from the topic entirely. There were a very few others, however, who asked what I think are pretty common stupid/irrelevant questions people ask rape victims. 1“Did you say no?”  2“Were you clear?”  3“Was it a man or a woman?”  4“Did it hurt?”  5“Were you fucked up?”  6“Don’t you like it rough though?”  7“Did you try to stop him?” I even had someone say “That sucks,” as if I stubbed my toe or burned my shirt with a cigarette or something. In case anyone reading this doesn’t have the clarity you want, here:

1. Of course I said no.
2. I’m fucking clear about EVERYTHING.
3. Man, but the perpetrator’s sex is not relevant. Any one can rape.
4. What do you think? Rapists are gentle & loving?
5. Not particularly, but if I was, do you think I deserved it?
6. Yes, but not relevant. There is consent or there is no consent. It’s 1 or 0. There is no “.5” If I say stop, it means stop.
7. Most men are considerably larger then I am, & it’s a little difficult to fight someone if you’re being held down from behind. If I was able to stop him, I most likely would have never discussed any of this with anyone.

Bonus. Here is a video about the dumb shit some people say when someone they know gets raped: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1ocXCYUjQ.

That brings me to this concept people have that certain types of people somehow “deserve” it more, or that certain people simply can’t be raped. This is a big reason why rape is grossly under-reported, especially in marginalized communities. Transgender people, prison inmates, prostitutes, drug addicts. This was posted on Facebook recently. You can find idiocy by going through the comments. It does not matter who you are or what you do. If a person says says no, and you don’t stop, you are a rapist. If she was raped, it’s unfortunate that law enforcement will not take it seriously. She’s a prostitute, so who cares? When I called the cops, they were respectful enough to my face, but nothing ever got done. I wasted my time talking to them. I received numerous offers for handling this off the books. I opted to handle it “legitimately,” even though he didn’t do me that courtesy. Now I don’t have either option. Reporting it got me nowhere. Can’t do it dirty because reporting it means I’d be the first suspect if anyone figured anything out. So he gets off free & clear. Fail.

As hard as I may seem, this event took a toll on me, as is fairly normal from what I hear from other friends who have gone through the same thing. I don’t eat or sleep when I’m stressed. Even when I could convince myself everything was fine over the past couple months, other people could tell I wasn’t fine. I lost nearly 10 pounds, hardly slept, & had nightmares when I did unless I got good & fucked up and armed myself to the teeth first. I think I failed to acknowledge this would require a significant healing process. This doesn’t go away in a few days or a few weeks. A piece of me is gone forever, but I’ve finally come to terms with that. Once I was more open about my emotions (depression, anger, feeling weak, feeling unsafe, aversion to sex), & ultimately spent a few days in a psychiatric hospital, I’m finally making significant progress. It isn’t something that goes away quickly. I don’t care how hard you are.

I’m lucky. This all made it real fucking clear who I could count on and who really wasn’t worth my effort. After throwing out the trash, I still have a large circle of REAL friends who are the reason I made it through this. Now I even have a great girlfriend. She understands this issue & my emotions. She watched my shit and kept my other friends updated when I was at the psychiatric hospital. She makes me feel nothing but loved & safe, & that’s the only way it should ever be.

Sex, Guns, and the Zombie Apocalypse

Intermission (after the party)

July 25, 2011

Brittany:  Hey. Thanks for coming to the party. Sorry I was as late as I was. Other things were interfering with my original plans to get there at 7.

Kayla:  It's all good. I understand running late for stuff. Happens to me all the time. Especially when you're relying on other people in order to do what you need to do.

Brittany:  It was fun, though. Especially the end when Crystal and I started watching True Blood and had trouble stopping.

Kayla:  Awesome. I think my friend Stefanie got into that show. I never watched it (for no particular reason other than that it just never popped up on my radar).

Brittany:  It had been a while since we had really sat around hanging out like that. We both get busy.

Kayla:  That's cool, to be able to catch up.

Brittany:  Funny though, because we're probably the least likely people at a party to stay up 'til morning like that, yet we were the only ones who did.

Kayla:  You had something worth staying up for.

Brittany:  Only ended up with a few pics, but I'll post them in an album at some point.

Kayla:  Cool.

Brittany:  No one remembered to bring a camera, including me. And with the lighting, we kinda had to use people's iphones to get decent pics.

Kayla:  I know! So stupid! Of all the parties NOT to bring a camera to... we suck. I'm sorry. And yeah, that's true. The lighting was awful for picture taking.

Brittany:  Maybe I'll work up a blog entry about the party and everything later. But I should probably go for now and get things done here.

Kayla:  Yeah, me too. Talk to ya' later.

Sex, Guns, and the Zombie Apocalypse

August 10, 2011

Kayla:  Hi.  How ya' been?

Brittany:  Good I guess. Busy mostly.

Kayla:  Busy with what? (just curious)

Brittany:  Mostly working.  I've been working on voice stuff and I'm starting to see at least a little progress.

Kayla:  Are the voice lessons hard?

Brittany:  Not really. It's mostly just a slow process--practice, etc.

Kayla:  Is it changing your voice in your day-to-day life (like, when you're not trying) yet?

Brittany:  No. Still takes more effort than that. If I tried it all day, I'd probably wear it down so it's kind of an at home thing right now.

Kayla:  It does seem like it'd be hard to keep it up all the time... at least at first.

Brittany:  The way it's done is sort of natural. The idea is that, after a while, you just have the new voice all the time.

Physically, things aren't a lot different than last time you saw me.

Kayla:  That's so cool. I can't believe how completely thorough this whole process is. I didn't know anything about the voice lessons until you told me about them.

Funny, I was just going to ask you how life on hormones was treating you.

Brittany:  Body hair growth has slowed to a crawl. I only really have to fuck with it like once a week now.

Kayla:  Are you feeling any different on the inside? Are you still bitchy(er than usual)? Do you still have to pee all the time?

Brittany:  Peeing hasn't changed much. I am more aware of my emotions, but I'm not half sociopath anymore. lol.

Kayla:  Well, that's good to know. Maybe I'll feel safe enough to talk to you in person now. (joking, of course)

Brittany:  lol

Kayla:  Just... uh... keep the gun at home, ok?  ;)

Brittany:  Yeah, that would be the time some idiot tried to steal my car from in front of your house, too. lol.
It's not like I go out of control. I wouldn't have 11 of these things if I weren't responsible about it.

Kayla:  11 of what things? (oh... your arsenal... is that what you mean?)

Brittany:  Yeah, the gun collection.  I suppose no one needs that many, but I like them.  It would be boring shooting one gun all the time at the ranges.

Kayla:  And, what are you doing with all those guns? Getting ready for the apocalypse? (it IS almost 2012, after all...)

Brittany:  Right. Lol.  Zombie apocalypse. Use guns to get more guns and food. Sit on the roof shooting zombies so they don't get in.

Kayla:  I can totally see it... and by then you should be completely changed over, so that's an even more amusing image... some chick, sitting on her roof, picking off zombies while eating hot dogs she swiped from the QuikTrip she looted in the dark of night.

Brittany:  Reminds me of when some CDC guy was talking about what to do in the event of a zombie crisis,
like he was serious. Cracked me up.  It was months ago, I think. It was all over the news.

Kayla:  I heard about that! The CDC actually put out an "official" statement on what to do "in case..."

Me, I always thought I'd need a flame thrower. You can shoot zombies all day, but they're already undead, so what good is that gonna' do? I say torch 'em 'til they're just ashes.

Brittany:  You shoot them in the head, if the movies are any indication.

Kayla:  Hollywood bullshit. What do they know? I'm telling you, the secret is fire.

Brittany:  Weird little tangent. lol

Kayla:  Hey, when you need something to talk about, there's ALWAYS the zombie apocalypse.

Brittany:  lol. Fresh on the mind, I guess. I wanted a quiet weekend, so I sat around drinking vodka and watching zombie movies I hadn't seen but wanted to.

Kayla:  I need to bone up on my zombie trivia, too.

But... back to our regularly scheduled programming... last I talked to you, you hadn't told your dad yet (but were going to). I think you said your sister was going to go with you. How did that go?

Brittany:  It went alright I guess.  He had a few questions about why.  I haven't talked to him much since then, but he seems to be handling it slowly, but fine.

Kayla:  How did you explain it to him?

Brittany:  I said that it's something I knew as soon as I figured out you could distinguish between kids by gender.  That it has nothing to do with him or with who I'm attracted to.

Kayla:  What do you mean, that last part about who you're attracted to?

Brittany:  People confuse gender with sexual preference, even though there is no relationship.  The fact that I'm primarily attracted to men doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Kayla:  I think I understand that... and I suppose... (sticky association/clarification moment here) I always thought of you as gay, but if you identify your gender as female, regardless of what you were born with, then you aren't strictly "gay" are you?

Brittany:  More straight than gay, I guess.  But it's not like a signed a pledge somewhere stating who I will and won't sleep with.

Kayla:  That's true.  People like to put everything in a box, though. They like to define their world.  It makes more sense to me, philosophically, that sexual/romantic preference should be loose. People love who they love and are attracted to who they're attracted to.

Brittany:  I don't know, people get confused.  They're like, "so you're straight?"  I'm like, "maybe, until I sleep with Rihanna or something."

Kayla:  Ha!  Do you think your gender reassignment will make dating more difficult? I know, awkward question, but apparently that's what I'm here for.

Brittany:  When I'm pre-op, yeah.  I'm not sure where I'll find dates & sex.

Kayla:  I'm sure there's gotta' be guys out there who want and "get" that... does it worry you at all?

Brittany:  There are guys all over the place who fetishize all this stuff.  I don't know that the selection within that group is real great.

Kayla:  Yeah... something about being someone's "fetish"... I don't know...

Brittany:  It's sort of a good thing my libido is low with the meds, I guess.

Kayla:  I doubt it'll stay that way.  You may never have a "typical male" drive anymore, but chicks need to get laid sometimes, too.  Seriously, though, I think it just depends on the individual.

Brittany:  I know. It doesn't lead to most of the people I've slept with.  Meat market at Majestic. lol

Kayla:  I'm sure it'll work out, though. I'm one of those saps that believes in fate, so I have no doubt you'll find the right person.

Brittany:  Really, even when I do think about it now, there's more experience of sorts in those thoughts than before.

Kayla:  You'll have to explain that one. But I gotta' go. Seriously, send me an email on the "there's more experience of sorts in those thoughts than before" thing...

Brittany:  Ok. I wrote down to do that.  I'm gonna' make a drink and go to sleep soon, I guess.

Kayla:  Good plan. I'm gonna' go get my spaghetti on. We'll talk again soon.

Brittany:  Cool. I'll email you where that got left off tomorrow.

Kayla:  Ok. Have a good night with your drink and your dreams, Britt.

Brittany:  You, too.

August 11, 2011

Brittany:  I guess I'll keep this fairly short, unless you actually want the gory details. What I meant about being more into the experience with sex is that it's not just the sex itself, which is how it used to be. Now the experience in general is equally important. Surroundings, atmosphere, mood, foreplay, role play, shit like that. Good thing, in a way. Looking at it that way, everyone is totally different and sort of new in a way. Like it's not just all about the release anymore, I guess, but just as much of how we get there.