Even though I was assigned male, I learned to fear male violence early in my life but it was a different kind of male violence than what other girls/women learn to fear.
I was targeted for physical and emotional abuse regularly starting when I was 5 years old and I suspect that's because I just "vibed wrong" to the boys around me. I didn't know how to blend in well with them and I was kicked, punched, and beaten up with some degree of regularity. The emotional abuse was constant.
I feel lucky because I managed to avoid sexual assault from my cis male age peers. I know that was NOT the case for other trans kids.
But I did live in fear of violence from boys. And that fear, sadly and unsurprisingly, meshed seamlessly with a fear of male sexual violence as I transitioned in my 20s.
My first experience with that fear happened before I even transitioned.
Here's a story, and I'll CW this with the caveat that everything turned out OK in the end...
@timberwraith Thank you for sharing your experience. It echoes several memorys of my own.
Seeing so much of the phrase du jour — “complying in advance” — I think of how much these types of traumatic experiences push so many into suppression of our will to exist as our own self; the survival instinct hiding behind so many half-joking “still cis tho”s.
Glad you have made it to be here today, and wishing us all many more.
@internet_seer Thank you.
@timberwraith
I'm glad it didn't go badly. I mean, obviously I am, but in particular.
@YouShallNotPass Whew. Me too. I was sure my proverbial goose was cooked that night. Holy crap.