I really would like it if the GOP would leave some things alone

[TW: Discussion of rape and abortion, sexism]

I was a little heartened that the truly offensive "rape redefinition" portion of the dreadful H.R. 3 bill was cut, but only guardedly so, because the bill is still a gigantic turd. See, I'm having some issues about this attack on rape understanding that I'm seeing as a committed political "thing".

I understand there is a rape culture, where misogyny and sexual violence are open subjects, but addressing male privilege and insisting upon safe spaces and boundaries are considered dangerous threats to free speech. I get it. I grew up in this culture. I am a person who has crossed some lines at times in my humor, in stories I've written--and I also get it.  It is not right to minimize other people's experiences. It is wrong to make assumptions about what other people have experienced. It just isn't right to tell people they are wrong about their pain. It just isn't. And that was why the redefinition of rape in H.R. 3 was just so egregious--it sent a message that some people's violation of their boundaries, and their self-determination about the results, was less-than. And that isn't right. It isn't for some usually older, predominantly white, and unlikely to ever experience rape, males, who will not ever, ever find themselves pregnant, to decide. But here's some rapist-loving shit I heard about today that floored my ass.

That piece of incredible blaming nonsense--to just forget about the idea that something ever happened to a person filing charges, and just call that person an accuser? Ignoring their pain. Ignoring the reality of their alarm, and PTSD, and fear of STD's, and their pregnancy tests, and their fears and their violation? That is sick. We have carjacking "victims" and mugging "victims". It's simply the word we use for someone who was done unto, and the assumption this fool has that a person needs to wait until her victimhood is certifiable is just monstrous.

This excellent, righteous post by Angry Black Lady examines the fears I have about what stupid cause might lurk behind this ignorant rape-denial. It's about denying female-bodied persons their rights. It's about denying them the process they deserve. It's about making the victim an "accuser" who is suspected of just making shit up until zie is proved not a witch not making things up. By a system that is slow, has flaws, that can't accommodate hir physical urgency.  That might force a rape victim--yes, victim, and then survivor, to bear hir attacker's child, and even have the named, charged, unconvicted shit make a claim on it. And on hir future, because having borne that developed child, zie can't disentangle hirself from that person (now, a person) ever trying to find hir, and wanting answers. And even telling hir offspring zie's a child of rape.

This bullshit made me want to scream. The song and dance number a person might need to go through to prove rape is just a lagniappe for the forced-birther brigade. To make them feel a little satisfied that this particular fetus, in this particular body, is good to go. And that sickens me. They know, and can distinguish, that maybe, just maybe, sometimes, a female-bodied person might just have a right that isn't trumped by a collection of cells--

But for spite they'd rather dangle these people's lives over a precipice while other people decide what is best--and not the person whose body was violated, and not the person who has an unwanted pregnancy. It's a disgrace. And I can't face that kind of disgusting denial temperately. No. Means no--tolerance of that pussyfooting around the actual experience of a real, suffering human being, and no--means no denial of hir right to determine what zie does with hir body and no, means you recognize that hir life has to go on and that law's business is to restore hir right, not presume to take any right away.

This GA Representative Bobby Franklin wants to deny victims their right to embrace their assaulted identity, mourn for the sense of self that was compromised, to deny them ultimately of the care they might need. That is disgraceful. Has he a single, female-bodied person at all in his life?I hate to think he is ignoring the needs of real people he actually knows, and yet I am sure he must be.

This denial of rape victim status to people who are subject to so much is heartless. I seethe. I drink. I blog. I...might write a sternly-worded letter, and encourage others to do the same.