I've read, argued, debated and questioned a lot online. I've noticed a particular contingent's praxis seem to be fixed around this formula:
A claim
for example "no one would..."
+
A scenario that's probably uncommon but far from impossible - in fact it almost certainly has already happened
=
The trans activist's whole fucking argument
(+ a sprinkling of moral opprobrium befitting the clergy to shift the decimal point, ramping up the hyperbole with misrepresentation of opponent and expressing incredulity at naysayers )
Examples being;
- 'No one would go through all of the effort to transition, just to attack women in the ladies!' ('all the effort to transition' being making an assertion or wearing a wig).
- 'No one would be put off by a door sign if they were intent on raping a woman in a changing room.'
- 'No one would claim to be transgender to escape jail.'
It's pitiful, because there are endless examples of the above occuring.
Oh, here's another common one:
- 'No one would lie about being trans and having been sexually assaulted to infiltrate a rape crisis peer support group.'
Firstly, let me be very clear: I am not saying that this is the motivating factor of the male person in Sarah Summers' rape crisis group.
Aside from Sarah's fear of this potentially being the case, I have no evidence to base that on.
Fetishizing the idea of being abused or suffering pain / a loss only possible for another group is far from out-there among those with paraphilias, though, and women who are afraid, uncomfortable, startled or maybe even going out of their way to welcome and accommodate could be extremely high up in the hierarchy of targets.
A feature of autogynephilia is subverting cultural norms and breaching boundaries. Presumably, for a particular kind of sex offender that's a pretty critical motivation too.
I'm highly suspicious of any transwoman who would want to be in that situation. All of the transwomen I know suffer dysphoria. They would want somewhere to go, but to trigger a response due to their maleness is something they themselves would find traumatic, let alone the upset they would cause. I know, because I've spoken to them.
Autopaedophilia is an extremely common feature of paedophilia. It's an erotic target location error like autogynephilia, and can be seen frequently within online kink communities, with the trans community particularly over represented. Men dressed as babies in play parks; chat boards used by paedophiles will often be found to have many fantasy conversations where one man plays along as a child.Or, even, baby animals -
It's a common defence in child sexual abuse cases;
Former Labour Councillor Roger Spackman was found with over a million images of child sexual abuse after authorities targeted a paedophile chat room where he was pretending to be a young girl suffering sexual abuse in an "exchange of kinks".
Graham / Gillian Newley claimed to be looking at images of little girls being sexually abused as “she wanted to know what it would be like to be a female child as she missed out” and not for sexual gratification.
David Challenor is chock-full of depraved perversions. During the hideous, warped cruelty he inflicted on a little girl, he dressed in diapers, adult-sized baby clothes with bonnet and demanding to be called "Lucy."
Anthony Scales is another.
And these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, having collated The Rich Fantasy.
Or, how about Gabrielle Darone, joining groups for women suffering miscarriage to talk about how his inability to become pregnant is crippling him, and he doesn't have any other way of coping than to simulate a whole pregnancy and birth - to a still born baby (work commitments, obvs)?
That sort of depravity is far from rare among fetish communities and I'm afraid to say that the T crowd are often pretty into all that, whether it's "queering motherhood" or any number of other things.
Things associated with women; menstruation, pregnancy, birth and miscarriage can be, and is, a kink.
Is anyone doubting that the trophies collected by rapists aren't somehow linked to reliving the crime from the victim/survivor's perspective, and this could be aided by hearing victims - any victims - relive their own trauma?
When rapists were still permitted to cross-examine their alleged victims in court, what did we imagine they were getting out of that, aside from the obvious intimidation?
Or what about the proliferation of porn where its "authenticity" is pushed?
Why are sexually violent or transgressive porn genres (such as incest) so keen to assert their realness?
Why are real life horrors uploaded to platforms like PornHub? Why would anyone risk not just taking, but sharing the recordings of abduction and rape they committed, as happened to Rose Kalemba, Avri Sapir and god knows how many others?
Some are as depraved as Przemyslaw Jakubowski, who raped a woman, and then masturbated during her testimony in an Irish court.
Pretending to have been or fantasising of being raped is also a known feature of autogynephilia.
Ted Bundy was an apparently dedicated and skilled suicide helpline volunteer.
Maybe it was due to his psychopathy, and his need for insight into how to act distressed convincingly. Maybe it was all part of his "upstanding citizen" schtick. Maybe he, as a sexual sadist and rapist serial killer, enjoyed hearing people's despair.
Speaking of helplines, let's talk about Chad Varah, the man who founded The Samaritans.
They were at the outset plagued by heavy-breathing harassers so much, and so many were repeat callers, they had to develop a protocol and call centre for people who were masturbating on the line. Often relaying graphic fantasies of having been assaulted in the past, Varah instructed they be redirected to a special division and volunteer force he created for them, 'The Brenda Callers'.
Interestingly, Chad described the wanking callers as “fetishists and transvestites.” Transvestites are something he mentioned a lot.
All the call handlers were women because, quelle surprise, the men wanted to hear a female voice.
"Another category was “sado-masochists”. Varah’s instruction was to listen to their stories of humiliation”
“The masturbation is part of a whole movement towards greater self-approval and confidence”"
"For transvestites, or what we would now refer to as cross-dressers, Varah’s approach was to reassure them that their pleasure was legitimate."
Varah also felt it was imperative some poor woman listen to the wanker, to reassure him and encourage him to form real life relationships, and those women who didn't want to listen should be support to those who did.
-
For me, the idea that a fetishist wouldn't find it arousing to hear female rape victims pushed to divulge their trauma is nothing but naivete. Or perhaps something much worse.
To suggest that Sarah is so incompetent she can sit with someone for an hour and not know the difference between a woman, a vulnerable transwoman presenting in good faith, and a creepy man in bog standard clothing who makes no effort at all, is insulting beyond belief.
But, this is always the starting and end point - denial, ridicule and angry counter-claim sliding to an eventual avalanche shedding of excuses, leaving just a blank-faced nonchalance, a slack jawed incredulity that anyone would have an issue with that anyway, as there is no subsection of men who would try to exploit situations. Women can, and should, just brush off their small town prudishness and put that man's recovery at the fore.
Now we have this gross facet of male fetishism established, I'm getting close to asking The Survivor's Network some questions.