My therapist at 16 was the first person I tried to open up to about being raped. Her reaction to hearing that my ex-boyfriend raped me was to say, “AWWWW!” – in the exact tone of someone watching a video of a rescued dog.
Then she looked at me with a blank smile, waiting for me to continue. I said, “Yeah… it was really awful,” and she replied, “I can imagine it was even worse for him! I don’t think he knew he was doing anything wrong. Imagine having an intimate moment with your girlfriend and she can’t emotionally handle it. You should’ve waited for marriage, when you would’ve been ready. Now that poor boy thinks he’s a rapist!”
Keep in mind, I had already come out to her as a trans man, but she refused to gender me correctly because, as she put it, I “hadn’t transitioned yet, so you are still a girl.”
-Anonymous, NY