It took four months before I began to come to terms with the fact I had been sexually assaulted. I knew all about consent and had even helped friends and ex-partners through the heart-breaking process of getting over someone’s choice to hurt them. But, because I was sexually assaulted by a Queer woman, I convinced myself that it wasn’t real. As I stood there, pinned against a wall having things done to me that I didn’t want, I thought to myself, “This isn’t happening.”
Afterwards, I repeatedly told myself that it was my fault because another woman would never do that to me. Over and over, I thought that a woman would have respected my repeated “no’s” if I had been more assertive. Like “no” didn’t mean “no”.
