Sean

"He’s ten years older than me. He has tried several times to sleep with me. I told him “No, you’re with somebody”. I find him attractive but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay."

How Abuse affected transitioning
I started transitioning when I was 21. That’s about two years ago. It took a long time for me to realise exactly that I was trans. It didn’t affect me until I started going through puberty, where my sister was always curvy and feminine and I wasn’t. I was kind of an athletic built, so I stopped eating because it was the only thing I could control. Around 14years old, I started thinking, if I ever want to be in a relationship, I’m going to have to wear make up and do my hair. I was still very tomboyish. I would still wear male clothes but that age, I started wearing more feminine things. 

When I was 15, I got into a long term relationship with someone I was in high school with.That had gone quite abusive. One of the things he hated most was anything masculine that I did. He would tell me “You should be wearing make up everyday to please me. You should have your hair sitting nice. You shouldn’t want to play sports. You shouldn’t be strong. You shouldn’t go to the gym.” I like video games, I always had. He started getting frustrated with that as well. He was physically abusive, mentally abusive, and sexually abusive. He was terrible. Most of the time he would be mentally abusive, so anything I said, he would twist it around. He would say I was lying or paranoid. He would really get inside my head. He has held me against a wall by my throat because I looked at him like he was stupid. It’s not even like it was a big argument. He threw a chair at me. He was asking me if I was transgender, but the thought of it scared me so much because I just thought of his reaction to it and so, I told him “No, I’m tomboy.” I totally denied myself of it. It wasn’t possible for that route to be an option. 

After I broke up with him, I shaved my hair, I felt like I could express what I was like and not this idea of what people wanted to see as. I started looking it up and thought I was gender non confirming or gender queer. When I was 20, I was going through depression, it wasn’t one thing. I felt worthless and thought nobody cared. I was pretty suicidal at that point. I would walk in the middle of roads because if I got hit by a car, it would be the kind of suicide that nobody could blame me for. I think I felt that way because there was this internal struggle going on that I didn’t understand myself. In that way, I had isolated myself but I couldn’t find a way out. I had no idea what was really going on. I think because of the abuse I suffered, I almost didn’t let myself understand it because still, in my head, being transgender was something that was wrong and it wasn’t something I allowed myself to feel. Being on medication wasn’t working so I went back to my doctor and said “I want to talk to somebody about my gender.’’ That’s when I began transitioning. 

Rape
In may, I was raped. It was somebody I know well, and was pretty good friends with for a year or so. He’d always been a little pushy. Even though he was in a relationship with someone with children. He’s ten years older than me. He has tried several times to sleep with me. I told him “No, you’re with somebody”. I find him attractive but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay. We had gone to the beach with few friends. He had gone walking away by himself, I was making sure he was okay. I was trying to give him my head torch. He was ignoring me so I followed him. I thought if he’s not going to take it, I’m going to be there and make sure he’s safe. He tricked me, he said he was going to pee and told me to turn off my head torch and then he did what he wanted to do. I finally got to a point, where I felt brave enough to talk about, and to report it. I had said to a guy who was there the same night that if someone were to ask him, if he could tell them that we were away at that time. I told him what had happened and he went straight to the guy and told him that I was going to report it to the police. That guy then went to the police first and told them that I was spreading rumours about him. First thing police asked me was “So, apparently, you’ve been going around spreading that you were raped”. Well, I was. I started crying. At first I was thinking I had said some things that had convinced him. I kept thinking “It’s my fault, it’s my fault.” The other day I went to give my full statement. It went on for 4hours but the police aren’t doing anything about it.  The women who took my statement asked me “How do you think he perceived the noises you were making?” and I told her “It doesn’t matter how he perceived them, he asked me to shut the fuck up” Then she was like “Do you think maybe he thought you were enjoying it?” I told her “No”. She told me “Well, this is probably a bad thing but at least it’ll help you make better decisions in the future!” I didn’t make any decision. If I made any decision, It wouldn’t have been rape.