Decades ago I was raped by a group of young men. I found myself in a place that I should not have been, but it was not because I was on a date or socializing with strangers. The circumstances are complicated, but it is the last thing that I would’ve expected to have happened. It had been a bad day and I was upset. They noticed my distress and that is what made me a target. This was decades before I began transitioning. I was not physically the kind of person that one would think of as being vulnerable in this way. I was 6‘2“ and in decent athletic shape. My appearance and demeanor gave no hint that I was anything but a normal heterosexual male. There was a large crowd and a group of young men, either friends or fellow partiers, surrounded me, moved me to the back of a larger group, bent me over and pinned my hands while they had their way with me. No one seemed to notice. There were other things going on which seemed to have the crowd’s attention and my rapists formed a bit of a picket line to shield me from the larger group. I don’t even remember how many people were involved or how long it lasted. It could have been 10 minutes or an hour, three or four people or a dozen. I don’t even remember any faces. The situation was so unexpected and so improbable that I was in shock that it was happening at all. I felt disconnected from everyone and everything, like a disembodied observer to what was unfolding. I just wanted it to be over.
After they had their fun, they let me go and I slinked into the background to pull myself and my clothing together. I didn’t have a car, so I called a friend for a ride and it seemed like hours before she picked me up, though it was probably no more than 15 minutes. She took me to her house and I spent the night in her spare bedroom. I hadn’t said anything during the ride home about what had happened. I ran into the bathroom and showered over and over scrubbing everything again and again until I was raw. I immediately went to bed and curled up in a ball.
I had been withdrawn during the trip to my friend’s house, but gave no other sign that anything was wrong. I had not collapsed in a tearful heap. I was merely quiet, almost catatonic, lost in my own thoughts. I did not call the police. At the time it did not even occur to me. I merely wanted to go to sleep and forget everything, to wake up and find that it had all been a bad dream. Part of me even wanted to go to sleep and never wake up at all.
In the middle of the night, my friend was concerned and came into the bedroom and sat on the side of the bed to find out why I was so quiet and withdrawn. At her gentle prodding I shared the story as best as I could remember. Next thing I knew I found myself in the ER of the local hospital. I was taken off to the side behind closed curtains and questioned by kind and caring medical personnel. A rape/crisis counselor was brought in to comfort me. A thorough physical examination was done and a rape kit taken. In some ways I felt like I was reliving the event. To gather evidence they violated me yet again with long cotton swabs, but in a gentle, less traumatic way. It was still upsetting.
Once the evidence was gathered a report was made to the police and a friendly detective came in to tell me that a thorough investigation would be done and that they knew the names of many of the people at the gathering. Some of them had been facing charges for low level crimes and the detective felt they had leverage to find out what had happened and who was involved. I just wanted them to leave me alone and drop the whole thing. I didn’t need to relive it all over again. I didn’t even grasp the reality that if an arrest were made, I would be asked to identify the perpetrators and ultimately testify. That scenario would have been too much for me to even comprehend. I was in denial. I blotted the possibility out of my mind.
Over the next few weeks, different officers would appear at the house from time to time and ask additional questions or for more clarification as to the events. They then decided that it never happened because they could not get any of the people involved to admit that anything had. They accused me of lying and making the whole thing up. They threatened to arrest me for filing a false police report in spite of the physical evidence that had been gathered at the hospital. I was in shock and in tears. I was terrified. I was the victim and being treated like a criminal. I felt like I had been raped all over again. I ultimately had to hire a lawyer to sort the whole thing out. I didn’t have the mental strength to deal with it alone.
Society still struggles with understanding the devastation caused by sexual violence. I think this is particularly true for those considered “male.” They should be strong enough to tough it out in the opinion of many. Couple this with the dismissive contempt displayed by a broad swath of society towards trans and non-binary people, and it is easy to understand why trans women especially are so vulnerable and disproportionally victimized. Most people do not comprehend how badly sexual violence traumatizes the victim and continues to do so over and over again in the public forum of making a report or an identification or testifying at trial. It makes no difference whether the abused is male or female, cis or trans, or something else entirely. Those of us living through it just want to forget the whole thing. I think we are also afraid that the perpetrator might somehow get revenge if we make life too difficult for him. Rape is about power and control. The fear, the feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness caused by the crime, continues to linger. I know I looked over my shoulder for months afterwards. I found it hard to trust anyone-friends, family, the police. I felt like the whole world was looking at me like I was weak or a liar or somehow deserved whatever happened to me. Sympathy and understanding seemed to be totally lacking. It destroyed my confidence and sense of self. It made me want to move to a desert island and be alone.
I totally understand why you never filed a police report. I would not have either if my friend, acting out of the best of intentions, had not put everything into motion. I sometimes wonder if the whole thing would have been less traumatic if just swept under the rug and forgotten. But then I would have always wondered, What if? What if I had sought justice? At least I would have tried.
In my case, the post-rape events that unfolded just compounded the trauma. Society and the system let me down. At least my friend remained steadfast; she was the one person who showed me any kindness or understanding. The people in my life I thought I could rely on belittled the trauma of my experience and emotionally abandoned me. I was in therapy for years.
CA, your story resonates on so many levels and brought back vivid memories of a trauma that I thought I had long forgotten. It never really goes away. Those of us who are victims understand in a way that even the most caring ally never really will.
