A PTSD Placeholder
With apologies, the nervous system wasn't having it today.
Information about Michael Vassar in this post is sourced from what others have posted on LessWrong and reflects unverified allegations that have not been proven in court.
I had something I really wanted to post today.
Something that was a story, after other material here seeming more like (necessary) closing arguments to be presented. It’s bringing up too much for me, so here’s what I can write instead.
So, what shall we talk about?
I generally don’t think DM’s are something to have public debates about, but I also think that people shouldn’t be able to slide their way out of accountability.
When Brooke Bowman talks about difficult conversations, that’s not accurate, at least when it comes to what happened to me. Vibecamp took the easy way out in promising follow-up that was never delivered.
While I was writing, I saw the latest on LessWrong, including Michael Vassar allegedly being the Rationalist quoted in the TIME article on misconduct in Effective Altruism and Rationalism.
I heard about yet another disappointment from the Canadian legal system. 48 women coming forward and an expert neurologist confirming pelvic exams are not standard practice was still not enough to convict a doctor of sexual assault. There has been enough evidence, at least, for him to be sanctioned by the Ontario medical board.
It made me think about the Ghomeshi trial, and Lucy DeCoutere’s testimony being discredited; despite what we now understand about trauma responses like fawning.
I thought about the social adjudication of what happened to me at Vibecamp, and an internet celebrity opining the same: women who come to a different interpretation about a sexual encounter after time passes as dishonest.
I’ve thought about this.
I do detest quoting it, given the content. Yet it never stops being relevant to the issue of sexual violence. Not just in Rationalism. Other men, and other groups, have paranoia about women waiting in the shadows to wield false accusations like a sword.
I’ve thought a lot about what I’ve learned about womanhood. How every woman I’ve ever been a little bit close with has a story: at least sexual harassment, often sexual assault. I was once told that the sexual harassment in question is the ante to womanhood. Told that the reason some women who didn’t like what I had to say about being sexually assaulted might be thinking well this proves she’s being accepted, what’s the big deal?
I remembered a startup I was at way back in the 00’s. What one of the male software engineers said protesting limits being set on what was appropriate at work.
It wasn’t any different than Trauma Junkie opining that the primary concerns of community leadership should be making a space ‘funner’, and anything else is an unacceptable drain on resources.
I’ve been thinking about what PTSD has taken from me over the past few years.
And about how often people appoint themselves arbiters of experiences they haven’t lived; especially when it comes to trans women.
Other trans women I’ve spoken with have echoed my experiences: we generally get in trouble for telling our stories. You see the seeds of that idea in Trauma Junkie; there is some arbitrary number of times you’re allowed to talk about what happens to you before other people, usually those that don’t experience systemic discrimination, determine that you’re the one at fault.
It happens to cis women too, and there are rewards for silencing them. I’m very bearish on emergent communities for that reason: people with blank canvases are re-creating the worst of the default world. It’s easier, it sells more tickets, and all you have to do is make an example out of one or two people.
I’ve sat with all of these thoughts. Chat, what are we even doing here? Every time I sit down and think about the topic of sexual violence as it relates to my experiences or things I know about it just keeps being this horror show.
Is comfort really this valuable to individuals and communities that we pretend, on a macro level, it’s some rare occurrence, like a plane crash in the same place twice?
I thought about was the scene from And The Band Played On where CDC Dr.Don Francis is trying to get the blood banks to use the Hepatitis B test on HIV:
Dr.Francis: “How many people have to die… A hundred? A thousand? Give us a number…”
When it comes to sexual violence, the number is the threshold at which community and personal comfort is no longer more important than the damage to victims.
I don’t know what that number is within Rationalist communities.
I really hope it’s less than 48.
Current mood: Frustrated 😑
Current music: Cybernetika - Medsci || 2016 DnB Remix