Sorry to reblog-spam, and especially with a novella of a reply, but I keep thinking about this.
One thing I noticed too is that the fear is always "what if you're falsely accusing a trans woman of being a predator? What then? What if you singlehandedly get trans women killed? Is that what you want?"
But there's never fear the other way. "What if we're ignoring a victim of sexual harassment, abuse, rape, or other sexual violence? What if we're perpetrating rape culture by silencing victims? What if we create an environment where missing stairs operate with impunity? What if our collective indifference to sexual assault causes a victim to commit suicide?"
There is already a society-wide presumption that false accusations do more harm than actual sexual violence, and that predators are more worthy of protection than people they victimize. There's already an implicit, built-in framework that the victims are the ones at fault. They should have fought harder, not dressed that way, not been into kink, not refused to do kink, not been impressionable young people... The victims have to act carefully so as not to cause "undue" harm to the one who hurt them. The victims are the ones expected to act responsibly. Their pain is secondary to the hypothetical pain making an accusation could cause. Even though false accusations just do not actually lead to the kind of life-ruining people say it does. People accused of rape, DV, harassment, and other crimes rarely have any problem becoming politicians, musicians, athletes, priests, teachers, and other respected figures after this comes to light.
Notice that all the "false" allegations made against high-profile trans women on this site have never harmed them beyond their blog getting deleted for de facto violations of the site's terms of service (IE death threats), which is inevitably followed by them returning within a week as banned-account-2 and subsequently being left alone. That's what the racist queer people on this site call "lynching." For all they insist, MRA-style, that a false accusation will LITERALLY RUIN LIVES, it has never happened within the Tumblr queer community. In fact, most of the ones who have "had their lives ruined" have gained more support, more followers, and more influence in the community after...... kinda like in real life.
On the other hand, I've seen victims of their behavior harassed into attempting and possibly committing suicide, including MINORS. I've seen victims doxxed, threatened with rape, stalked, isolated from their own communities while their abuser is welcomed with open arms... you name it.
Once again: it's victims of sexual violence who are at risk of having their lives ruined, not "victims of false accusations," and yet everyone acts as though the latter are the ones in need of protection. Because vengeful, lying little shrews are everywhere, just waiting to ruin lives with malicious false accusations. And if you happen to get wrongly lumped in as a false accuser, oh well, suck it up buttercup, no one cares about something so insignificant as sexual harassment. You should be lucky you were only sexually harassed instead of being falsely accused of sexual harassment. Imagine how much worse it would have been for you!
It's parasitizing your empathy, that's what it is. It's taking your natural desire to good and help marginalized people, and shifting it from the people who do deserve it (people who have been harmed by bad actors in the community [and note that by far, most victims of bad actors in the queer community are themselves queer, so this behavior of denying victims recourse is queerphobic and dangerous to the queer community!]) towards predators who can speak well, have large followings, and convinced people that accusing any trans woman of sexual misconduct in any circumstances makes you a JK Rowling-level TERF.
And again, the race issue here, the inherent antiblackness of framing this as something that constantly happens to black people as a way of shielding themselves- that's another form of parasitizing. It's not "black people are disproportionately accused and convicted of crimes, and most wrongfully convicted death row convicts are black too- we need to help those folks," it's "black people and trans people are constantly falsely accused of rape, just, all the time, we need to help trans people, and a few of the black trans people who happen to agree with us on all these issues." It's basic feminism that false accusations are an anti-feminist, anti-victim dogwhistle; by trying to associate black folks with it, on a site where A HUGE NUMBER of black people have already been run off due to antiblackness... it muddies the waters ON PURPOSE. It makes it seem like to be a proper ally to the trans community and the black community, you HAVE to buy into the misogynistic canard that false accusations happen OFTEN. It repackages misogyny in a Woke, rainbow-colored box. The fucking nerve to use black folks that way!!
If the Anonsee debacle had happened today, her victims would absolutely have been labeled transmisogynists and run off the site. Her victims would have been labeled dangerous, lying, transmisogynistic predatorjacketers not to be trusted in the community.
It's becoming increasingly clear that too much of the queer community on this site learned NOTHING from the MeToo movement. Actually, worse than learning nothing at all, what they "learned" is that "believe victims" is some kind of dangerous sentiment made solely to oppress queer people. They view sexual harassment or assault as a minor inconvenience that pales in comparison to the trauma of being accused of sexual harassment or assault.
That's really, really sad. Basic feminist principles, like "false accusations are not nearly as big a problem as rape culture itself" have been entirely discarded.
False accusations are not a real issue. Never have been and never will be. But silencing victims under the guise of preventing false accusations is VERY real.
Ending by echoing the OP, here: How many people do you guys know who have been wrongfully accused of rape, DV, sexual harassment, or other sexual violence? And how many people do you guys know who have been victims of rape, DV, sexual harassment, or other sexual violence, but were dismissed as "wrongful accusers?"
My tally: 0 falsely accused, dozens of victims not believed or written off as liars.
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