Excellent!

I too, have spent 25 years immersed in femininity. Before that, I was engaged in maintaining a facade of masculinity.

Last Saturday morning, I was sexually assaulted. The response I got from other women was, to say the least, dissapointing.

Though not explicitly spoken, the prevailing tone was that it was just a normal thing…Be quiet and don’t make waves…

I had been having sex with him, once every week or two, for nearly a year. It was just a booty-call for him, and for me too. I didn’t want a relationship with a muscle-bound, muscle-head, anyway. I quite enjoy my independence. But the sex was good, in a no-foreplay, all-about-his- d**k, kind of way.

When he began to get more demanding, paranoid that I might not be saving myself for only him, I texted him and told him not to ever come back, complementing his “skills”🙄, in hopes of him not being angry. Saying that I did have suitors, and did, myself, desire an actual relationship, leaving it unsaid that he was not a candidate.

A week later, (last Saturday), I was awakened by a pounding on my door. Bleary-eyed with sleep, I went to the door and looked out the peephole. There, coincidentally, was a UPS truck in the parking lot. There was a man, with a ball-cap, pulled low, head down and to the side, banging on the door.

Yeah, you guessed it.

I opened the door, and he barged in. The heavily muscled, wieght-lifting, (steroid-taking?), recently rejected, “alpha-male”, pushed me back and into a chair.

As he pulled the top of my night gown down and started groping my breasts, I kept telling him, “no! Stop it! You just woke me up? I don’t feel like it! I don’t want to!”

After a dozen or so “no”s, it was clear that he simply was not going to stop.

He didn’t say anything about hitting me or anything like that, but can anyone really blame me for being very frightened that he would?

I decided that I could not fight back. I decided to let him do what he wanted, what he said, and hope it would be over with soon.

I complied. After a half hour or so, he said, “I have to go do something, but I’ll be back. My d**k is still hard!”

He did come back an hour later. He banged on the door for a half hour. I remained quiet, hoping that he wouldn’t break it down.

When he had given up, been gone for about an hour, I cautiously peeked outside. I walked, quickly, to a nearby AA Hut. When I arrived, Carol was sitting on the steps, she gave me a hug and I cried on her a bit.

I have a key to the Hut, due to my proximity and volunteer work, so I opened it up and we went in to prepare for the 1:00 meeting.

I texted my sponsor and told her about it, in detail. I also told her that her recently ex boyfriend was coming to the Hut, from another city, to try to sweet-talk me.

Her response was, “Louise, I appreciate that you feel you can discuss your private life with me, but please don’t tell me the names of the men, especially when we both know them. I wouldn’t want to see them in a different way.”

At first, the odd, non-responses and sympathy for my sponsor’s position, had me thinking that they saw me as not worthy of human dignity, because I’m a trans-woman. As time went on, I realized that it was the endemic nature of the rape-culture and a pervasive phenomenon!

(I almost typed “perverse”, because it is).

Being who I am, and having had the diverse experiences that I have had, over a period of 60 years, I am not profoundly traumatized. I can, however, easily extrapolate, and understand the deep, life-long trauma that a younger and inexperienced woman or girl would certainly have.

I am not ashamed. I probably should be afraid, but I’m just…not.

What I am, is angry, at him, more at my ex-sponsor, and mostly at the effects, and continuing evil of this rape-culture.

I posted about it on my Facebook page. I got sympathy from a few transwomen, and a couple of lesbians.

The reason I wrote this in response to your piece, is that I was also contacted by a man who is the new boyfriend of a woman whom I love dearly. He said that he wondered why I didn’t go to the police. I was too appalled to explain to him the many ways that a woman’s life is torn to shreds when reporting a rape, particularly when there are no visible bruises.

A trans-woman reporting a rape!?

In North Carolina!?

I simply told him,”When you are a woman and get raped, then we can talk”.

I won’t be quiet about it, the way I was in the Navy. I won’t meekly, demurely, 'accept my fate’!

More women need to speak up. I’m willing to shout, for us all.