Speaking Out Against Domestic Abuse

I don't watch awards shows.  Well, all right, I don't watch TV these days.  But even when I was tied to the tube, I didn't pay attention to the Grammys, Oscars or any of the others.

So I missed Obama's anti- domestic abuse message at last night's Grammys, or the speech by Brooke Axtell that followed.  But someone passed them on to me:

October Is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month.

The issue has received a lot of publicity because of Ray Rice.  The running back's contract with the Baltimore Ravens was suspended by the team not long after the National Football League suspended him for beating his then-fiancée (now wife) into unconsciousness. 

Of course, it took a lot of public outcry and pressure from sponsors to get Roger Gooddell, the NFL commissioner, to act on his case.  He claimed not to have known about the video on which Rice uses his spouse-to-be as a punching bag in an Atlantic City casino elevator at the time TMZ posted it online, in March.

Still, Rice's case got more attention than most other incidents of domestic violence, in part because of his celebrity.  Too many other incidents of such abuse are never reported, and too many others are simply not taken seriously when they are reported. Or, they are mis-handled by law enforcement authorities.

One reason for these problems has to do with perceptions and attitudes about domestic violence. For the most part, there are still many people--including, incredibly, women--who think that the woman/girl must have done something to "provoke" the man/boy.  Such provocation can include simply not pleasing him, whether sexually or in some other way. 

Another reason why domestic violence isn't dealt with appropriately is that it's still seen as a man-on-woman problem.  To be sure, the vast majority of such cases involve males abusing females in one way or another.  But new research has found that there's LGBT partners beat and otherwise abuse each other at roughly the same rate as heterosexual couples.   Sometimes law enforcement officials don't take their complaints seriously or at all; even when a conscientious police officer tries to help and records the complaint, little more can be done because the couple's union isn't legally recognized.

And, I can tell you from personal experience that some policemen (and -women) simply think trans people are not worth helping because, they believe, we're all sex workers (or sexual predators) and that our status somehow gives our partners the right to abuse us.  Finally, too many in law enforcement--and even in the so-called helping and healing professions--still think that if it's not physical, it's not abuse.  It took me three visits to my local precinct before anyone would hear my ordeal of having endured over 11,000 text messages, as well as "anonymous" false complaints to my former employer and the city, and e-mails falsely accusing me of sexual crimes, from Dominick.

Of course, he will never think of himself as an abuser.  It's because of people like him that we need anything that will raise awareness of what Domestic (i.e., Intimate Partner) Violence (i.e., abuse) actually is.

How People Like Him Get Away With It

More years ago than I'll admit, I taught in an Orthodox Jewish school.  In those days, I was still living as male and it was an all-boys' school so, of course, I would not be allowed to teach there today.  In fact, the only female there (unless you count me) was the secretary.  She was the head rabbi's mother.

Anyway, I mention it because not long after I was hired, the head rabbi told me something I hadn't expected to hear--from him, anyway.  "Orthodox famiies have all the same problems as other families," he said.  "We have substance abuse, domestic violence, you name it."

A long silence.  Then, as if he'd read the question in my mind, he continued:  "The problem is, for too long, we've swept it under the rug."

"I guess when you're a minority, you have to, " I responded.

His eyes widened.  "Yes!  We try so hard to present a united front, a clean image, that at times we hide all of the things for which we need help, whether from within our own community or outside."

I mention that experience because in the early part of my transition, I heard nothing about domestic violence--or any other kind of abuse--in LGBT relationships.  In fact, even though I was involved with the LGBT Community Center in New York as well as other organizations and projects involving the community, I never heard about abusive relationships in the LGBT community.

That is, until the issue hit home.  Literally.

You see, I didn't know it at the time, but someone knew that as happy as I was about starting my new life, I was also very, very vulnerable.  No matter how good an experience you have of "coming out", no matter how well your transition goes, you are going to be extra- (sometimes too) sensitive in some areas.  And people like the one I've mentioned can always figure out where your sensitivities are.

Early in my transition, I had also just come to terms with having beat up--with the help of two classmates--a gay man (or, at least, a man we thought was gay) when I was a teenager.  And I was also dealing with some of my own experiences of having been bullied.

The person I mentioned knew how to play on those things--and the fact that my parents were clearly making an effort to understand what I was experiencing.  He figured, correctly, he could use my relative good fortune to make me feel sympathy for him because he'd grown up in an extremely dysfunctional family.

About his family, he wasn't lying:  I saw the home in which he'd grown up, and in which he was still living, firsthand.  And he also figured out pretty quickly that although I'm not the most sensitive or caring person in the world, I am capable of a pretty fair amount of sympathy, if I do say so myself.

Little did I know I was walking into a trap. I've since learned that countless others--in and out of the LGBT community, some much more intelligent and sensitive than I am--have walked into the very same trap, in much the way I did.  

He also knew that he could exploit an old stereotype--the trans person as sexual predator--to his advantage.  Whenever I said "no" to him, stories would circulate about my having sex with students or others.  I have never done, and never would do, such a thing; in fact, I never did or would even before my transition.  

Just last spring, a year after I last heard from Dominick, I learned that his behaviors are typical of abusers in relationships with trans people, especially with trans people having their first relationships since starting their transitions.  Vicki, a counselor at the Anti-Violence Project, clued me into those patterns of behavior as we did other work on the aftermath of my realtionship with Dominick.  He never struck me with his hands or used any other physical violence.  However, he used various threats, including ones to make my life "so miserable that" I'd  "think living in a cardboard box is good" and to tell people "who'd believe me and not you," in his words, that I am a racist, sexual predator (Yes, he used that term!) and criminal.  

Probably the one "silver lining" in all of this is that he was stupid enough to write such threats in e-mails and text messages.  So, when I had to move out of an apartment and lost a job over "anonymous" complaints, guess who was the most likely suspect?  Even so, I had to go three times to the 114th Precinct, and to two courts, before anyone would take action against him.

Still, that's better luck than I had with LGBT organizations--including ones in which I volunteered--or individual people in the community I knew at the time.  One of those organizations is set up to provide legal assistance to trans people, but its founder/director thought my case was "too controversial."  And, of course, none of this city's gay publications wanted to run my story, or even to investigate it.

They were doing, it seems, exactly what the head rabbi of my old school described so many years ago.  I get the feeling that the directors of LGBT organizations didn't want to give homophobes ammunition.  And my old landlord and employer didn't want to risk the "controversy" of having someone who was even suspected--even though there was plenty of evidence to the contrary--of living up to the worst stereotypes (which they, deep down, still believed) in their midst.

Dominick knew people would act and react that way.  That's why he got away with what he did for so long.  And nobody who meets him would ever suspect he could behave that way--just as I didn't when I first met him. Finally, he knew--still knows, I'm sure--that just as he can bully someone else as he bullied me, he can count on at least a few people in the community to sweep his behavior under the rug--and would throw his victim under the bus, as they did with me.

As a post-script, I want to say that I've since met other gay men, lesbians and trans people who've been far more sympathetic and helpful.  Some are part of the Anti-Violence Project; others are part of the church (say what you will about it!) I now attend.

Post-post script:  The last time I wrote about my experiences with Dominick, he sent me a threatening text message that began with "It has come to my attention that..."   In other words, he couldn't even admit that he was trolling this blog!

Dow Down, Rape Up

Some of my students at York College are social work majors.  Others work for City agencies, including the Department of Education and the Office of Human Resources. Ever since the  city and country have tumbled through a recession and into a depression, they have been telling me that there has been more domestic violence.  It's not hard to see what they mean:  I have heard more and more stories about it from acquaintances and through various grapevines.


Now, it seems, the level of violence against women (which is what most of those domestic violence cases are) has escalated.  Instead of conducting it behind closed doors, more and more of it is happening on the streets and in other public areas.  None of the female students I talk to, especially those who enter or leave the campus after dark, feels safe.  Several have told me about men who tried to sexually attack them; others have told me about people they know who were attacked.  And, if my experience is any indication of anything, I think at least a couple of those women are telling "proxy" stories, if you will:  They themselves may have been attacked, or have somehow escaped an attempted attack but, for a variety of reasons, didn't want to say that they were so victimized.  Also, nearly every researcher in this area reports that sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes.


Now I've found out that in an area not far from where I live, a young woman was raped by three young men as she walked home from work in the wee hours of Sunday morning.   They dragged her into a parking lot in an industrial area of Long Island City, in the shadow of the Queensborough Bridge.  The particular spot where she was attacked is all but deserted most nights and weekends after workers go home, but the area around it is developing into a trendy residential area.  It is closer to Manhattan's East Side and Midtown than any place outside Manhattan, and the neighborhood offers unparalleled views of the UN, Empire State Building and other landmarks.  I sometimes ride or walk down that way for those reasons; also PS 1, a well-known art exhibition space located in a former public school, is just steps away.


What angers--but, unfortunately, doesn't surprise--me is the way some have responded to it.  Some have expressed and given support to the victims, but others--mainly in comments left in response to online stories of the incident--say, in essence, that she "had it coming to her."  Some insinuated that any woman walking through that area at the hour she was attacked must have been a prostitute, or was breaking the law in some other way.  Just from the standpoint of logic, such a response is offensive:  After all, do people say that people who drive too fast, sell marijuana or commit other kinds of low-level crime "deserve" to be the victims of violent sexual assault? Of course, the assumption that the young woman was a "street walker" is equally offensive.  News reports said that she lived and worked nearby; my guess is that she was a waitress in one of the bars or diners within blocks of the site or, perhaps, was dancing in one of the clubs.  People who do those kinds of work often are going home at three, four or five in the morning. (In fact, I've had students who came from such jobs to morning classes I taught!)  


The thing is, getting raped--or simply living a life that is, in various ways, shaped by the threat of such crimes--has absolutely nothing to do with one's age, physical attractiveness or actual or perceived economic status.  It's all a  matter of domination and control.  Since my transition, and especially since my surgery, I can see that some men see women's bodies and wills as things to be controlled and dominated--or broken, if we won't submit.  When such men lose whatever "grip" they have on the world--for example, when they lose their jobs--or when they never had that "grip" in the first place, they get angry.  And they turn that anger on women, gays, transgenders, members of races or nationalities or religions other than their own, or anyone whom they feel is not in his or her "place."


Of course, one of the problems with acting on such (mis-) perceptions is that the people such men attack are, as often as not, little if any better off than they are.  If the young woman who was attacked was walking home from a job as a waitress or dancer, she probably wasn't making very much money and wasn't much, if at all, in a better social or economic position than those young men.  Furthermore, whatever she has, she didn't get by taking anything away from those guys.  They never would have gotten whatever job she was working; even if they could have had it, they probably wouldn't have taken it, or wouldn't have lasted more than a week in it.  (I've worked in a coffee shop and know how frustrating it can be to deal with customers!)  


Naturally, I feel sympathy for the young woman who was attacked.  I also feel very, very worried, for I can't help but to think "there's more where that came from."  I hope that there isn't, but if economic conditions continue to deteriorate, I don't know what will stop the tide of violence against women from swelling.  Meantime, I advise my female students, co-workers and friends to be very, very careful. Then again, I don't think most of them need to be told that.

A Victim Or An Accuser?

When is a victim an accuser?

She is when the crime against her is rape, stalking or domestic violence.

At least, that will be the case if a bill introduced by Georgia State Legislator Bobby Franklin is enacted.

I used female pronouns in the second sentence of this post because the vast majority of victims of those crimes are females.  For that reason alone, the bill is terrible.  

I am not the first person to report on this bill and its consequences for women who are victimized by sexual violence.  But so far, I haven't seen any comments on how much the bill reflects biases against class and lifestyle.  Given the nature of socioeconomic status and politics, those biases also are ultimately biases against women.

Franklin says that as long as there is no conviction, he wants people who report that they've been raped, stalked or battered to be classified as "accusers" rather than "victims."  For one thing, getting a conviction in such cases requires a lot of time and other resources of the victim as well as from law enforcement agencies.  Calling someone a mere accuser when she's a victim means that her complaint has less credibility than that of someone who reports, say, a burglary.  This would make getting a conviction an even longer, more difficult and more expensive process than it already is.  As women who are victims of such crimes tend to have fewer resources and are typically in more precarious work and domestic situations than other people, the changes Franklin wants will ensure that fewer victims will report such crimes against them.  

As it stands, the crimes that would be covered in the bill are among the most under-reported crimes.  According to a report from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 60 percent of rapes and sexual assaults are not reported to the police.  And, if unreported cases are factored in, only 6 percent of rapists ever spend a day in jail, according to the RAINN report.  People who say that they were victims of a crime that they didn't report, when asked, say that they didn't report the crime against them because of the logistical barriers involved in doing so and because they didn't feel that their complaints would be taken seriously.  Both of those factors would worsen if anything like Franklin's bill passes.

Sometimes I'm not optimistic about the course of events.  But I never expected to see, even in one of the reddest states, an attempt to re-create law based on notions about rape and the value of one gender vs. the other that people were starting to abandon during my adolescence.  In other words, it seems that Franklin still believes that women who say they're raped are simply fantasizing and "had it coming" to them.  Also, he's saying that our pretty little heads aren't capable of reason.  So, whatever we say is less credible than what men say.

African-Americans and members of other "minority" groups have similarly been seen as less credible.  That's a story unto itself, but it also relates to the story at hand.  Anyone who's seen as a "minority" by those in the power structure is believed to be less than credible:  childlike, or simply incapable of seeing things "clearly" and telling the "truth."

In other words, the bill that Franklin proposes is as much an attempt to disenfranchise people who only recently began to win and exercise the rights Georgians and other Americans have.  In that sense, he's the spiritual descendant of those who levied poll taxes and "grandfather rule"s against newly-freed African Americans during the Reconstruction.

Inadvertent Commemoration

Today, without thinking, I wore a purple overshirt atop a magenta blouse that coordinated with a like color in the print of the skirt I wore.  And I covered myself with a shawl in a sort of burgundish purple.  A couple of people told me I looked nice, but one woman--a stranger--said, "So you're wearing purple for this day?"


"What?"


She explained that it was Domestic Violence Awareness Day.  Also, she said, people were wearing purple to commemorate the victims of anti-gay violence.  It turns out that there has  been an epidemic of both lately.


I've read a few reports in which social workers and researchers attribute an increase in domestic violence to the recession.  People are spending more time at home, they explain, in relationships they may no longer want to be in because they can't afford to go anywhere else.  And people--men, mainly--are frustrated over losing jobs and, in some cases, being supported by the very wives and girlfriends they're beating.


Purple has long been my favorite color, but today that woman I met confirmed something that I've always suspected: it's a color of survivors:  of people who've had to be creative simply to survive, much less to live life on their own terms.  It's certainly not a color of the status quo.


As I was going home tonight, I saw that the Empire State Building was lit in dark red and purple.  You can't get a much clearer sign than that!