By Lindsay McBride

So here's one story.  Assigned female at birth, Robyn grew up in a household where her dad yelled at, fought with, and sometimes threatened to hit her mom. When she was 17, she simultaneously left home and came out as a lesbian.  True liberation!  About two years later, one of her close male friends forced her to have sex with him and told her it was for her own good.  Robyn wasn't sure if it was rape, but knew that it really messed with her head.  When she was 22, after a series of sex/relationships with several women and men, Robyn fell hard for this powerful dyke named Kai.

The first five months were amazing, and Robyn felt like she could finally relax.  But she was really confused with the thoughts that wouldn't leave her head -- like maybe she wasn't just a butch dyke.
Something about her own body and gender and mind felt, well, male.  She nervously asked Kai what she thought.

Kai immediately said, "What, you want to be a man? Especially after you were raped by one?  Jesus, Robyn.  I'm a dyke.  You're a dyke.  What is this?"  Shocked, Robyn backed off from the conversation.  She felt even more confused because it wasn't that she wanted to be a man, it was that she had felt for a long time that maybe she really was one.  The next night, Kai told Robyn she didn't mean to sound so upset, she was sorry, and she really loved her.  Robyn felt better, but was still really confused.

Things were pretty smooth for the next month.  Robyn had finally met a few people who were also trying to figure out their gender stuff, which really helped.  One evening one of the guys she'd been hanging out with called.  When Kai said that Robyn wasn't home, he asked, "Will you have him call me back?"  Kai yelled at the guy and slammed down the phone.  When Robyn got home, Kai got up in her face yelling and pushing Robyn back, threatening to break up with her if she talked with any of "those freaks" anymore.  So in order to keep Kai happy, and also because she was embarrassed by how Kai responded to her friend, Robyn stopped hanging out with them.  It worked, too, because Kai seemed more loving and understanding about everything.

Still, Robyn realized that whenever he would get back from work, Kai would ask Robyn where he'd been and who he'd been with.  Sometimes Kai would accuse Robyn of sleeping with other people if he was even fifteen minutes late coming back to Kai's apartment.  It was weird, Kai's temper seemed to have gotten a shorter fuse -- sometimes Robyn felt like he was walking on eggshells just to avoid having Kai blow up at him.  But then there were the sweet times, when Kai would be wonderful. 

Which made Robyn feel guilty and think that he should be grateful that Kai was even putting up with this gender stuff at all.

It really started to fall apart when Kai began constantly picking at Robyn, always saying how stupid he was, or making comments about the way Robyn wore his hair, or dressed, or walked down the street -- comments like "You'll never be a real man, so why you trying to look like one?"  Robyn had already stopped trying to explain it to Kai, because she wouldn't really listen.   And when they would have sex, which was often when Robyn didn't feel like it, Kai would say, "See how much you love this, how much your body craves this?"  And Robyn would feel betrayed by what Kai was doing with his body, his breasts, his cunt.


So tell me -- with widespread homophobia and transphobia at domestic violence agencies, where is Robyn going to go to talk with anyone about this?  Where can he find support to work out his questions about his gender identity and also name the emotional abuse within the relationship?  It's hard to talk about abuse, especially if he would have to educate (and in some cases, protect himself from) the staff and/or residents of a shelter.  Add to this scenario that most support services are for traditionally-gendered heterosexual male abusers or female survivors.  Would a counselor assume that Robyn was the abuser -- or worse, would he have to attempt to pass as female in order to get support?

There is a place where the true range of experiences that trans survivors face -- including issues of gender identity, sexuality, racism, classism, and sexual orientation can finally be integrated into healing from incest, childhood sexual abuse, rape, and sexual, emotional, and physical abuse within relationships.  The LGBT Sexual Assault Services program offers FREE individual and group counseling.  Ask for Lindsay at (312) 372-6600 ext. 287.  Call with questions, for a counseling session, to take me to task, to tell me what I've left out, or to let me know who I should be getting in touch with.