Feinstein: You’re a big, powerful man. Why didn’t you [gestures pushing motion]?
Crews: Senator, as a black man in America [sigh]…
Feinstein: Say it as it is. I think it’s important.
Crews: …you only have a few shots at success. You only have a few chances to make yourself a viable member of the community. I’m from Flint, Michigan. I have seen many many young black men who were provoked into violence, and they were imprisoned, or they were killed, and they’re not here. My wife for years prepared me. She said, “If you ever get goaded, if you ever get prodded, if you ever have anyone try to push you into any kind of situation, don’t do it. Don’t be violent.” And she trained me. I’ll be honest with you it was the strength of my wife who trained me and told me, “If this situation happens, let’s leave.” And the training worked because I did not go into my first reaction, I grabbed her hand, we left, but the next day I went right to the agency. I have texts, I have phone conversations, and I said, “This is unacceptable!” And I told them how -you know- I almost got violent, but I didn’t. And I said, “What are you going to do about this predator that you have roaming your hallways?” And -you know- I was told, “We are going to do everything in our power. We are going to handle this Terry. You’re right. It is unacceptable.” And then they disappeared. Nothing happened.
Look at the faces of the black men behind him it says it all.
This is real fucking infuriating. This shit isn’t funny. Fuck them and anyone who makes fun of Terry Crews speaking out and taking a stand.
for those who don’t know the context, this is Terry Crews testifying about being sexually assaulted by Adam Venit during a Senate hearing about a proposed bill called the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights. While I don’t like that Senator Feinstein said what she said, I think it opened the door for a great statement from Terry about WHY he didn’t fight back – since so many people respond to male victims with “oh well you’re bigger than your rapist, why didn’t you push him or her off of you? why didn’t you punch him or her? did you want it or something?” And they don’t listen. Maybe finally people will listen.
This shows that anyone can be a victim of sexual assault, even a tall, strong, hulking guy like Terry Crews. And I hope him coming forward with his accusations convinces other victims to realize that it being a victim isn’t something to be ashamed of and to take down their attackers, and push the justice system to FINALLY take male rape and assault seriously.
I think she asked him the question precisely for that
I mean, “Say it as it is, I think it’s important” kind of spelled that out, no? People will bend over backwards for some asshole who tells a rape joke, or who sexually assaults a woman but he’s a likeable guy and the incident doesn’t quite fit their definition of sexual assault. But a woman asks a question with the obvious intent of having on record victim testimony of why so many don’t fight back even if they technically could, and people’s first reaction is lump her in with victim-blamers.
Not actually comprehend anything happening right in front of them
heteronormativity is a hell of a drug
May I add:
Once on Facebook I mentioned getting married at a big mad max themed campout. One of the guys that regularly attends told me to take my wife to visit his camp for a drink. I told him my husband, actually.
And he then said “wow, I’m sorry, I’ve never met a girl named dave before! Now I’ve seen everything.”
This dude thought I was a girl name David before he thought I was a gay man. Straight people are wild.
Some people are just so fucking dense, the kind of women who hate men are women who have been abused, raped, degraded, and traumatized by men. But they care more about the fact that these women hate men than they do about stopping the men who are doing all of the raping, abusing, degrading, and traumatizing to women.
They literally think women’s words are worse than men’s physical actions.
“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence. So we lower our voices. Women whisper. Women apologize. Women shut up. Women trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back. Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.” – Andrea Dworkin
Happy to know this human @pidgeo_n
・・・
When I was 18, and retrieved my medical records from @luriechildrens, I found out four important truths that changed the course of my life. ▫️
1️⃣ I discovered that as a baby I was labeled a male pseudo-hermaphrodite 46XY. This was shocking because I had been assigned female at birth. ▫️
2️⃣ I was born with undescended testes. No one ever told me this truth, instead my doctors lied and told me I was born with “cancerous ovaries” that had to be surgically removed in order to save my life.
▫️
3️⃣ My clitoris was deemed too large (at a mere 1.5 centimeters when stretched) when I was 4 years old, and surgically altered with a medical procedure called a clitorectomy–very similar to #FemaleGenitalMutilation. ▫️
4️⃣ At age 11, I was told by my doctors at Lurie that I needed a surgery on my urethra and bladder, but discovered thanks to retrieving my medical records that they actually gave me a complex vaginoplasty-like surgery instead.
▫️〰️▫️
All of these surgeries were NOT medically necessary, and done without my consent.
▫️〰️▫️
All of this happened, I would find out, because my genitals didn’t quite fit the doctors’ binary perception of what “normal female” genitals should look & behave like. No medical reasons whatsoever. My body was cut, put on display and medically violated because people with M.Ds pathologize (see last post) our beautiful healthy #nonbinary #intersex bodies.
▫️
I went back to the hospital where all of this went down and asked my best friend (& amazing Chicago movement photographer Sarah-Ji @loveandstrugglephotos) to take photos of me in front of the drive way leading into the entrance of the hospital that was then boarded up and being demolished. It was a driveway I was very familiar with as young person, a driveway that lead to the gates of a small personal hell. ▫️
Lurie Childrens hospital, and all children’s hospitals that continue performing non-consensual medical unnecessary surgeries on intersex kids, claim to “care” for us when we never needed that “care” in the first place. If you go on Lurie’s website today, they still have clitoral surgeries listed as a medical intervention for intersex babies.
End forced intersex reassignment!
This is what “Assigned sex at birth” actually means.
Big Mean Sweaty Dyke 