“Sexual abuse survivors feel powerless all over again and disregarded by society for fear of being labeled transphobic.”

When I was sixteen years old, I was a lonely kid. I just wanted someone to talk to. I was an easy target to be groomed online by a twenty-one year old man to provide sexual favours for him, such as sexualized conversations and he guided me to take pornographic images of myself for him, and had me watch pornography. He used me for years, putting this idea in my head that we had some kind of relationship while also keeping me at a distance and psychologically tormenting and gaslighting me. One day he told me he thinks he’s transgender and he’s a woman now. It didn’t sound right to me, but after he got really upset about my questions, I stopped objecting.

I still wanted answers though, so I went looking for more information and I came to the conclusion that gender identity is a scam. I was also reading more about grooming and sexual abuse and realized that the person I thought I knew all those years is just an abusive, porn addicted, predatory autogynephile. This man is a hidden sex offender. He uses women’s spaces. He is a threat to young women and girls. he’s not a woman, or a lesbian, he’s a man. Predators like him should be barred from transitioning and claiming a ‘female identity’. Arguably, no man should be claiming a ‘female identity’, or entering any women only spaces, but can we at least bar off the predators?

I feel like the world is against me. I was sexually abused as a child and as an early teen I was raped. It had a strong impact on how I function in everyday life, I don’t think I ever want sex again and I’ve struggled to form relationships.

I avoid using enclosed or isolated public spaces since these were places of abuse for me and can trigger PTSD. Bathrooms, changing rooms, gyms and so on have become even more of a challenge. I’ve noticed that places in my hometown have began changing (sometimes just womens’) bathrooms to gender neutral, even in healthcare institutions.

I don’t bother to bring up my opinion anymore, when I try to explain why female spaces are important to me, people just say something like, “Male organs aren’t inherent to men, it doesn’t matter what body someone has.” It matters if that male organ was used as a tool to take away your humanity.

It’s hard when most of your time is spent around men. I’m sure women with similar experiences know what I mean when I say that being around other women helps. It’s a break from listening to men talk about disgusting fantasies, violent thoughts and favourite porn stars.

I found comfort in women-only spaces, it’s one of the only times when you can feel equal to everyone else in the room, and not have overwhelming thoughts you might be abused again.

It’s things as small as talking about your body with other women that make you feel human again, not an object. I wish people could understand what it’s like to have your only form of sanctuary gradually fall apart in front of you everyday.

When I was younger, I was in a relationship with a mentally disturbed male who mentally, emotionally, and physically tortured me for 7 years. When I confronted him about the abuse after leaving, he turned the attention onto himself by saying he sometimes felt like a woman. This was his excuse for his misogynistic abuse.

I met him when I was young on the internet and believed he was my soul mate. Because I was sexually abused as a child by an older brother, abuse was normalized in my life and I was desperate for love and attention from a male. He told me he was heterosexual, he watched porn and treated me like a sexual object. One time he told me his favorite thing about me was that I was still a 'virgin' when he met me.

He used my abuse as a child to insult me, beat me for crying, threatened to kill me, and would not let me escape from his anger into the bathroom. He left me in a traumatized state after living with him. Then denied he abused me and tried to make me sympathize with him by coming out as “transgender.” I told him how insulting it was for him to invalidate my experience as a female who was abused since a child and then claim to feel like a woman.

When I asked him, what makes him feel like a woman, he said he was good at finding nice-looking women's clothing for me, he is not disgusted by transwomen as he is with men and likes to penetrate himself. When living with him I found women's panties in his room and he said it was his mom's, I believe he wore these to act out an autogynephilic, porn fantasy. After this conversation, I believe I was left in a more traumatized state than I was before.

My relationship with him was that of mental/emotional torment and annihilation like he was trying to destroy every good part left of me. It felt like the erasure of my experience as a woman because he did not even allow me to express my experience of oppression as a female. There is no way he could be partly a woman, biologically, but also because he could never understand or have empathy for the female experience.

He severely abused me because I was female after my brother did and I was fooled into thinking I was his equal counterpart. No woman or girl should be forced to share private spaces with or validate any man who treats women like this, whatever they identify as. I get a totally different experience of feeling safe and understood when relating to other females.

I am now 30 years old; a child sexual abuse, rape, and domestic abuse survivor being called a bigot for believing women have a right to protect our sex-segregated boundaries. To then be told by transgender ideology and the Biden Administration, that those like my ex-boyfriend are actually innately female, or non-male, if they say so, is psychological and emotional abuse all over again.

This is just another instance of people in positions of power using their authority to rule over women and girls’ lives and deny us bodily autonomy. It only takes one boy to use gender identity policy to scar the lives of multiple female students.

Sexual abuse survivors feel powerless all over again and disregarded by society for fear of being labeled transphobic. Our voices and experiences as girls are silenced like we do not matter compared to boys who identify as girls.