one of the ways i know this culture has a massive issue with consent
is the sheer amount of people I’ve known that just lie & tell people they’re deathly allergic to foods they dislike
because otherwise people will hound them, mock them, coax them, harass them, try to force them to eat it, or even trick them into eating it, and they will never hear the end of it
your coworkers will bake it into a fucking pie, call it something else, and wait til your birthday, gather everyone and their first cousins to sit around in a circle waiting for you to put a forkful into your mouth and then point rhythmically at you in a chanting, glaring, sweating, unholy circle like SWISS CHARD SWISS CHARD YOU JUST ATE SWISS CHARD HA HA HA SWISS CHARD NOW YOU LIKE SWISS CHARD
Because forcing someone into a situation where they don’t feel safe declining putting something into their body they’d rather not be there is totes 100% wholesome American fun
And this is something so known that it’s infinitely easier to just lie and tell people that you’ll die if you eat that food…which actually doesn’t always stop it from happening
Blehhhhhh… i cannot do raw tomatoes. I will vomit. Even if the juice soaks into other parts of my food i will still taste it and vomit. I don’t know how to explain this to people so they don’t put tomatoes on my food (if they are not friends or family). I’m not going to go into a spiel over the Taco Bell intercom that raw tomatoes make me vomit. I just tell them I’m allergic. And if that means they change their gloves, GOOD i dont want that nasty tomato juice on my taco salad. Fast food workers are not paid enough to give a shit if I just say “no tomato”. Half the fuckin time they hide tomatoes in the salad just to be dicks anyway. >:( And yes, i will still use ketchup with my tomato-less burger because i looked it up and you can be allergic to raw tomatoes and be perfectly ok with cooked tomatoes. I got my alibi straight.
My sister is a super picky eater and people can be really nasty and judgemental to her about it.
You really need to let people be the boss of what they put inside their own body.
Yeah this is why that toddler with the wasabi made me so angry and sad. She said no more than once and they made her eat it anyway. It’s one thing to urge a child to try a new food, and another all together to force her to eat fucking wasabi paste for their amusement.
My mom always tries to do things like that, and she’d get really angry when I didn’t fall for it or thwarted her attempts at doing it to other people. Like she’d put alum in the potato salad to prank my step-dad, onions in a casserole after my ex-husband admitted he can’t stand to eat them, mushrooms in a dish she made for Husband who hates mushrooms and when I warned him, she got mad at me. And she’d get mad at me when I would tell her how mean it was to do that.
I don’t understand that way of thinking.
And, of course, there are people who won’t even respect the allergy issue. “Oh, it was just a dash of chili powder. That’s ok, right?.” And ok maybe that’s not enough to make my throat close but I’m gonna be itchy for daaaaaaays now, kthx.
I can sometimes be a bit aggressive when offering my picky toddler foods and I am working on that but like. I’d never straight up shove wasabi in his mouth because that is just Fucked Up.
My mom and I are allergic to peppers - not, as of yet, anaphylactic, but definitely “itchy hives for days and gastrointestinal upset” allergic. Until relatively recently, my brother avoided them too, because the odds seemed sound (mom and i, plus two of my mom’s sibs and my grandmother all have the allergy).
His ex-girlfriend liked peppers, and decided that his “allergy” was fake, so she cooked him dinner and hid bell peppers in it. After they’d eaten she was like “AHA, see, you’re not allergic”.
No harm done, because my brother, it turns out, does not have the allergy. But every time I think about it, I’ve got to wonder - what the fuck would she have done if it turned out he did? Did it ever occur to her that she was potentially placing her desire to not have to be careful about preparing peppers in a shared kitchen over his actual physical safety?
The kicker: she was a med student.
I’m mildly allergic to mangoes, which thankfully never comes up, since I live in America, which seems to have none whatsoever, but I’m vegetarian, and i have been since I was born, so my stomach doesn’t have the necessary enzymes to digest red meat, luckily for me, everyone I know would never willingly give me any meat without my consent
Are you willing to work weekends? Holidays? Through the birth of your child? Until you collapse?
It’s the hot new thing in job interviews: Testing whether candidates are willing to sacrifice everything — their home lives, their families, their health — for the good of their company.
The Muse recently wrote that we should be aware of “work-life balance ‘tests'” during interviews, highlighting the chief executive of Barstool Sports, Erika Nardini, who reportedly texts job applicants interviewing with the company on weekends. Nardini said she does this “just to see how fast you’ll respond,” in an interview with The New York Times. She expects to be contacted back “within three hours,” she elaborated. “It’s not that I’m going to bug you all weekend if you work for me, but I want you to be responsive. I think about work all the time,” Nardini said. “Other people don’t have to be working all the time, but I want people who are also always thinking.”
It was also reported recently that Vena Solutions CEO Don Mal asks candidates if they’d “leave [their] family at Disneyland to do something that was really important for the company?” He expects them to say yes.
I was 6 years old when my two older sisters went to Palestine to “visit family.” At least that’s what my mom told me.
I was born in Chicago, like my sisters, but our parents are Palestinian, born in Jerusalem. I was four-months-old when our father died — he worked at a gas station and was shot during a robbery. After that, the four of us moved into the basement apartment of my mom’s mother’s house, where my sisters and I shared a room.
I worshipped my oldest sister growing up. She was rebellious and loved pop music and makeup, which my grandmother and mother couldn’t stand. We were raised Muslim, and while my mom didn’t make us wear hijabs — headscarves — to school, we did when we went to mosque on the high holidays. Every other day, we wore long-sleeve shirts and pants or knee-length skirts.
I don’t have too many memories of my sisters, but I do remember how much my oldest sister loved Usher. She was 13 and she’d sing along to his music on the radio in our room. She bought a poster of him, shirtless, and pinned it to the wall next to our bed.
He didn’t last long. My grandmother saw the poster one day and ripped it off the wall. She was screaming at my sister, and my sister yelled right back — she was feisty! But it didn’t matter; Usher was gone. And a year later, so were my sisters.
My mom said they were “going on a trip” to Palestine, but even as a 6-year-old, I’d heard rumors about a diary entry. Something about my sister kissing a boy behind a tree, or writing that she wanted to. I remember large suitcases and both of my sisters weeping as we said goodbye. I cried too, but I was more mad at them for leaving me. Who would I listen to the radio with late at night?
Still, I assumed they were coming back. So when my mother told me that they wanted to stay in Palestine, I got really upset. I missed them so much.
The only time I got to see my friends was at school.
In 8th grade, our class took a field trip to tour the high school. No one wore uniforms, like we did in middle school! I could even wear my skinny jeans there. Yep, as strict as my mom was, she did buy me skinny jeans that were super popular then. I remember being in the store and pointing them out and being stunned when she nodded yes, then paid for three pairs at the register. They were the only things I owned that made me feel like a normal kid.
But right before middle school graduation, I came home from school one afternoon to find my mother and grandmother rummaging through my closet.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
My mother was holding a garbage bag and my grandmother had scissors. They were cutting my skinny jeans into pieces and throwing them away.
I was so confused — she’d bought them for me! When I asked my mom why, she said, “They’re inappropriate and revealing. You’re too old to dress like this now!”
I was furious. All I had left were one pair of baggy jeans, which I hated. For the first time in middle school, I was relieved to have a uniform.
As soon as I graduated 8th grade, I started pestering my mom about enrolling me in high school. Every time I asked if she’d done it, she’d say, “Not yet.” In July, she said, “I’m signing you up for an all girls’ school.” But there was a wait list, so then it was going to be online school. I even did my own research and had pamphlets sent to the house, but nothing happened.
By September, all of my friends had started school but me. I woke up every day at 10am and watched TV, cleaned the house, and helped make dinner. I was beyond bored. Meanwhile my mom loved having me around. She didn’t work, and always said that it was important for me to learn how to be a good housewife. I cringed every time she said that — that was the last thing I wanted to be.
In fact, I really wanted a job, even if it was just working at my step-dad’s gas station. Anything to get out of the house. I even asked my step-dad if I could get a workers’ permit, which you can get at 15 in Chicago, and he said, “Sure!” But just like with high school, nothing ever happened. It was another empty promise.
My laptop was my refuge.
Facebook was the only way for me to stay in touch with my friends. I made up a random name that my parents could never guess and chatted with friends throughout the day. If my mom walked into the room, I’d switch the screen to a video game. She had no idea. Earlier that year, when I told friends why I wasn’t in school, more than one told me, “That’s illegal!” I kind of knew I had the legal right to be in school, but wasn’t sure who to tell. My parents didn’t care — it’s what they wanted!
A year passed, and the following summer, I was chatting on Facebook with a guy I knew from middle school.
When he wrote, “Want to go to Chipotle this Friday?” my heart skipped a beat.
I was super excited and typed back, “Sure.”
I told my parents that I was going to see my 24-year-old cousin. She was the only person I was ever allowed to visit. She’s also incredibly cool and promised to cover for me. I met her at her house, and then she dropped me off at the mall and told me to have a great time.
I did! He was cute, and super nice. I told him that my parents were strict and didn’t even know where I was. He was like, “No worries!”
It was the most fun I’d had in over a year. At the end of our date, I told him that I’d be in touch over Facebook, and floated home.
The next night, I was in the living room watching TV when the doorbell rang. My mom answered, and I heard his voice ask, “Is Yasmine home?”
I froze.
My mother started screaming, “Who are you and why are you at this house?”
He said, “I’m Yasmine’s boyfriend.”
I could see him standing in front of my mom, her back to me, and was trying to wave to him, like, “Go away! This is a terrible idea!”
She threatened to call the police, slammed the door, and then screamed at me: “Go to your room. You’re grounded!”
The next day, my mom went grocery shopping without me and locked the glass storm door from the outside, which meant I was trapped. For the next two weeks, I was literally kept under lock and key when she left.
And then one day, my mother said, “Pack your bags. We’re going to Palestine to visit your sisters.”
I’d only been there once when I was 10; I don’t even remember seeing my sisters then — all I remember is that it was dusty and dry. No green at all. I hated it. Plus, I speak only very basic Arabic, which is what they speak there.
I was dreading the trip. Saying goodbye to my little sister was painful — she was 8 by then. She was the only other person who knew, besides my cousin, about my date. I fought back tears and promised I’d be back soon.
My mom said we’d be gone for a month, but I didn’t trust her. On the way to the airport, I asked to see my return ticket. I wanted proof that it existed. She was indignant as she showed me the ticket, but it made me feel better.
My mother and grandmother and I landed in Tel Aviv, which was as hot and dusty as I remembered. I felt claustrophobic in the cab, which we took to Ramallah, the Palestinian capital. My grandmother has a house there, and both of my sisters lived nearby.
I was so angry about being there that I wasn’t even excited to see my sisters. I couldn’t believe that they’d left me all those years before. Now, they were both married with kids. But by the end of that first evening, I relaxed with them. I even told them what happened with my Chipotle date, and they started teasing me, like, “You’re such an idiot! With a white guy? Really?”
They thought that if he’d been Muslim, I wouldn’t have gotten into so much trouble. I wasn’t so sure, but it still felt good to laugh with them about it.
About two weeks into our stay, my sisters sat me down and started doing my hair and makeup. I was never allowed to wear makeup at home, so I thought it was cool. When I asked why, they said they wanted me to meet a friend of theirs.
Their friend was in his twenties but still lived with his mom, which my sister called “a problem.” I didn’t understand what she meant by that.
He arrived with his mom and uncle and started speaking to me in Arabic. I barely understood anything except for his asking me how old I was.
I said, “I’m 15. I just finished 8th grade.”
He looked perplexed. So was I.
After he left, I asked my sisters what the meeting was about. They explained that the way to meet suitors is through families. When a family thinks a girl is ready to be married — usually she’s part of that decision — they pass word along to other families that they’re looking for a husband. The couple then meets through the parents, and if it is a good match, an arrangement is made.
A week passed, and once again my sisters sat me down and started putting makeup on me. They said that another guy was coming to meet me. When I asked, “Who?”
They said, “Don’t worry about it. Just have fun.”
The doorbell rang and in walked a guy with his parents. I’m 5'8" and he was 5'4", nine years older, and missing half of his front left tooth. Everyone seemed very eager. I was repulsed.
I sat stone-faced the entire time they were there. As soon as he and his family left, my mom and grandmother said that they thought I should marry him. They said, “He has a job and a house.” That’s all it took.
I was furious. By then, I realized that they’d brought me to Palestine to get married and planned to leave me there. Instead of berating them, I immediately started thinking of ways to return home on my own. I had watched SVU. I knew this was totally illegal. I just needed to figure out a way to reach a detective in Illinois who could help me escape.
I also knew then that I couldn’t trust my sisters — anytime I complained to them, they’d just say, “It’s not so bad! You’ll learn to love him!”
He and I met two more times that week and each time, I hoped he’d figure out that I was being coerced. But then, during that third visit, all the men went into one room while the women stayed in another.
My sister, mother, and grandmother were chatting with his mother and sisters when I heard the men read the engagement passage from the Koran, which announces a marriage.
Startled, I said to my sisters, “What are they doing?”
My oldest sister said, “They’re reading the passage.”
I shouted, “No!” and fought back tears.
My worst nightmare was becoming a terrifying reality. I ran into the bathroom, curled into a ball, and dissolved into tears. How could my family do this to me? I thought about running away, but how? My mother had my passport. I had no money. I was stuck. I started thinking about different ways to die. Anything was better than this.
After his family left, I could no longer contain my rage at my mother. “How could you do this to me? I am your daughter!” I shouted. Tears were streaming down my face. I could see my mom was upset, too — she was crying, shaking her head. I think she felt bad about it, but she also felt like it was the best option. I felt so betrayed.
And just then, my grandmother marched into the room and slapped me. “Don’t disrespect your mother!” she said, before turning to my mother and saying, “See? She needs this. How else will she learn to be respectful?’
That’s when I learned that my grandmother had set the whole thing up. She’d met this man’s family at a mall the same week I met him! His parents owned a restaurant and spotted us shopping. They approached her to see if I was an eligible bride for their son. She told them yes, but that I had to be married before she flew back to the States. He had no other prospects, so they were excited I was one.
I never liked my grandmother, but I didn’t hate her until that moment.
The wedding was planned for September 30th, a week and a half away. I was still desperately trying to figure a way out of it. I told my mom, “I’ll find a way to leave.” She replied, “Either you marry him or someone way older who won’t be as nice.”
My sisters said the same. “You’re lucky.” As much as I dreaded what was happening, they made the alternative sound even worse.
A few days before the wedding, my oldest sister finally revealed that she was also married against her will. “I was kicking and screaming the whole way,” she told me. “But I learned to love him. You will too.”
I don’t remember the ceremony — everything is such a blur — but I do remember pulling away when he tried to kiss my cheek and my mother hissing, “Kiss his cheek!” I refused.
At the end of the wedding party, both of my sisters were so excited about my first night with him. They even said, “Text us afterwards!”
I hated them.
The first night was awful. The only thing I’m thankful for is that my husband was not a violent or aggressive man. It could have been so much worse. I get terrible migraine headaches brought on by stress, and I used them to my advantage in the weeks that followed.
He took that first week off of work and we spent most of it with his family. I did the best I could to tolerate being around him and his family while I tried to figure a way out of this mess. To do that, I needed to get on the internet.
When he went back to his job as a mechanic, he’d be gone by 9am. I’d get up, have breakfast and go to his mom’s house to help her clean and make dinner. She had a computer, so one day, I asked if I could use it to talk to my mother and she agreed. Instead, I logged onto Facebook and messaged a friend from 3rd grade and told her where I was and what had happened.
She wrote back immediately, “That’s illegal!”
Once again, I knew that, but I didn’t know what to do.
I had another friend I met through Facebook who lived in Texas. He was Muslim. I told him what happened, and he wrote, ‘You need to call the embassy!’ He even sent the number.
My heart was pounding as I wrote it in a piece of paper and shoved it into my pocket.
On October 14th, I was in our apartment in the afternoon when I finally worked up the nerve to call. I used the Nokia flip phone my husband gave me to talk to him and my sisters.
An American-sounding man answered the phone and I blurted, “I’m a U.S. citizen. My parents brought me here against my will to marry a man. I want to go home.”
After a moment of silence, he said, “Wow, this is a first. Hold for a moment.” He connected me to a man named Mohammed, who asked me for my parents’ names and address in the states.
I gave him all the proof I could think of that I was a US citizen. I didn’t know my social security number and didn’t have my passport. He said that was okay, but he needed proof that I was actually married. He asked for the marriage certificate. I had no idea where it was. Then he asked me for my husband’s last name, and I realized, I had no idea what that was either.
Mohammed told me he’d be in touch once he verified all my information. He called me several times over the next two months. During that time, I learned my husband’s last name, which was legally mine as well.
As I waited for news, I got lots of migraines.
On December 3rd, Mohammed called with the number for a taxi service and the address of a hotel. He told me to be there the next morning at 11am.
The next morning, I waited for my husband to leave and shoved all of my belongings — including the traditional wedding gold my husband’s family gave me — into my suitcase and called the number. That’s when I realized that I didn’t even know my address. I told the driver the name of the closest big store and then stayed on the phone with him, telling him when to turn right or left. He still couldn’t find me, so I ran down to the main street to flag him down praying no one would see me.
I held my breath for the entire 30-minute ride to the hotel. There, in the parking lot, I spotted a blond woman sitting with a guy in a black van.
“Are you with the US embassy?” I asked.
They said yes, and then she patted me down, explaining it was for security purposes, to make sure I was not strapped with any bombs.
I said, “Do whatever you need to do!” I didn’t care — I was so close to freedom.
When they put me in the back seat, I pulled off my headscarf and fought back happy tears: There, with these two strangers, I felt safe for the first time in forever.
We went to the US Embassy in Jerusalem where I spent the day filling out paperwork in order to enter into the foster care system back in the States. I had no idea what that meant other than from this one cartoon show called Foster Home for Imaginary Friends, but agreeing to enter foster care wasn’t hard — at least it was a new start.
That night, a diplomat accompanied me to the airport with two bodyguards, and I was placed on a plane to Philadelphia.
On my next flight, I flew from Philadelphia to Chicago O'Hare and sat next to a 20-something guy on his way to his friend’s bachelor party who asked me how old I was.
I said, “15.”
He said, “You’re too young to be on a plane by yourself!”
If he only knew.
At O'Hare, I had twenty minutes to kill before I was supposed to meet two state officials in the food court, so I went to a computer terminal and logged onto Facebook. I had two accounts at the time: one for friends and one for family. I wanted to see what my family was saying.
A three-page letter from my second oldest sister was the first thing I read. She said she never wanted to see me again, that she hated me, and that if anyone asked her how many sisters she had, she’d say two instead of three. I was devastated.
Then I read a group chat between my two sisters, my mom, and my mom’s sister.
It started, “Yasmine ran away.” “What? Where?” And then someone wrote, “She’s ruining our reputation!” Not one of them wondered if I was okay.
My aunt asked if I had taken my gold. When my sister said yes, my aunt replied, “She could have gotten kidnapped or robbed!”
That was the only mention of concern for my wellbeing.
As painful as it was to read those words, it made me realize that I had made the right choice.
The people I then met in the airport food court introduced me to a woman from Illinois’ Child Protective Services, who took me under her wing. It was 11am, 24 hours after I ran for my life into the streets of Ramallah to escape my forced marriage.
I first moved in with a woman who fostered several kids, and stayed there for six months. It wasn’t ideal — she was very religious and made us go to her Baptist church with her on Saturday and Sunday. But it was still better than what I’d left. This was confirmed when I had to face my mother in court to establish that I should remain a ward of the state, which is what they call kids whose parents aren’t fit to take care of them.
The first court date was two weeks after I arrived. When I saw my mom, I froze. She was sitting in the waiting room and refused to acknowledge me. She didn’t make eye contact; it was as if I didn’t exist. I felt an awful mix of hurt and rage.
A few months later, I had to testify in a courtroom. My mom was there with her lawyer. He showed photos from my wedding and said, “You look happy! And your mom said that you wanted to be married.”
I had to explain to a room full of strangers that I was faking that smile to survive and that my mom knew the entire time that I didn’t want to marry that man. On the stand, I said, “My mom is lying.” That was so painful to have to say — I wept in front of everyone. All the feelings I’d kept inside just poured out.
After that hearing, I officially became a ward of the state of Illinois.
By then, I’d already started ninth grade. I didn’t like my foster mom much. I stopped going to church on the weekends, but she wouldn’t let me or my foster brother stay in the house alone so we were locked out until she got home every weekend and weekdays too. It was hard in the Chicago winter, but the agency didn’t think I was in immediate danger, so I stayed put. Teens are hard to place.
By January 2014, at 16-years-old, I’d been in and out of three foster homes. My strategy was just to survive foster care until I was 18, when I would finally be on my own. So when a couple called Carrie and Marvin came to meet me one weekend, I didn’t hold out any hope.
Carrie and Marvin had two biological teenagers, both with developmental delays. They understood kids and were super warm, but it still took me a while to open up. I really wanted to make it to 18 living with them, but I never dreamed what actually happened next.
When I hit my one-year anniversary with them, they asked me if I wanted to be adopted. I was shocked! I figured I’d leave at 18 and just be on my own — I never thought there was an alternative. But they told me that they wanted me around forever. I cannot tell you how good that felt — to be wanted, by an actual family. I said yes.
No more waking up at 6am to someone saying, “Pack your bags — you’re out!” For the first time in my life, I could put things up in my room and it was okay. It was the first time since being in that van with the people from the embassy that I felt safe.
I saw my mother one last time in court, at the final termination of parental rights. Carrie had asked her for childhood photos of me, and amazingly, my mom handed them to me there.
It was a cold exchange. She was expressionless. At first, I was insulted. It all seemed so easy, her giving me up. But it was really nice to get the photos. She didn’t have to do that.
Now Carrie has them around the house. It makes me feel like I’m really part of her family, like I’m her kid.
I finally reconnected on Facebook with my sister a few months ago, the one who’d said she hated me. She admitted that she wished she’d had the nerve to do what I had done. Now I understand why she was so upset: I got away. She didn’t.
I just graduated from high school — the first in my biological family to do so! In September, I’m going to Illinois State University and just learned that I won a full scholarship, which means my tuition will be waived for the next five years. I plan to study mass communications, and may want to do something with computers, considering they are literally what saved me.
Regardless of what I end up doing for a living, the thing that makes me the most excited is that I get to choose — what I want to wear, who I want to date, or even marry, and ultimately, who I want to be.
Wow.
Incredible
This is such an incredible story and hits home for so many reasons. I can’t stop crying..
Since this is starting to get quite a few notes, I’m going to signal boost some information on the subject and some organizations that do a lot of good work in this area.
Forced and child marriages are not limited to any single race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or place of residence. The US is no exception: while forced marriages aren’t something you think of as happening in the States, there were at least 3,000 forced and underage marriages that took place in the United States between 2009 and 2011. A national survey found that forced marriage occurs among families of a variety of religious backgrounds, including individuals from Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, and other faith traditions, so again, there is no singular group of people being affected by this practice. While the majority of forced marriages involve girls who are minors and older teenagers, there are a lot of women in their early and mid-20s that become victims as well; men are also victims, though in smaller numbers. One of the (many) complicating factors in the US is the presence of ‘parental consent’ marriage laws, which allow 15, 16, and 17-year-olds to get married with a parent’s consent; the problem being, of course, that the parents consent to the marriage but the child does not.
If you are facing the prospect of a forced marriage, suspect your family is trying to take you overseas to get married against your will, are in the process of being forcibly married off, are currently in a forced marriage, or have a friend who is in any of the aforementioned situations, here are some resources you can utilize:
Tahirih Justice Center’s Forced Marriage Initiative: Email fmi@tahirih.org with your story or call 571-282-6161 and ask for Casey or Dina; they run the Forced Marriage Initiative at Tahirih and are both professional caseworkers whose job completely revolves around helping people leave forced/underage marriages and preventing them from happening in the first place.
The mission of the Forced Marriage Initiative is to end forced marriage in the United States, and this is taking place in several forms: Casey and Dina’s main objective, of course, is to directly assist victims and potential victims. However, they also run a very active education, advocacy, and legal campaign. Jeanne, who also works closely with them, does a lot of public policy work on the subject and is currently working on getting the minimum age of marriage raised to 18 in every state, while Archana does a lot on the policy and legal side of things to try and minimize the numbers of forced marriages happening in the United States.
Unchained At Last: a New Jersey-based non-profit that fights against forced and child marriage in the US. Founder and CEO Fraidy Reiss is a forced marriage survivor, and has dedicated her life to helping other people (mostly women and girls) escape forced and child marriage situations. You can fill out their formor call 908-481-HOPE.
The AHA Foundation: The Foundation deals with issues relating to female genital mutilation, honor violence, and forced marriages, though they focus on advocacy and victims in Muslim communities. Here is their Get Help page and their amazing resource directory, organized by type of service and state.
Manavi: an organization founded specifically to help South Asian women escape domestic violence, sexual violence, and forced marriages. Here’s their Get Help page and the number of their 24-hour hotline:1-732-435-1414.
Girls Not Brides: A global partnership of over 900 civil organizations from 95 countries committed to ending child marriage. While the partnership itself is only a policy organization, they have a lot of good resources for finding assistance if you are a victim or prospective victim of forced/underage marriage.
The US Department of State has an entire page about the topic
If you are a US citizen or resident abroad, contact your local US embassy for assistance and they will help as much as they are able
Some articles discussing the problem in greater depth:
If you want to get involved in tackling this problem, each one of the organizations I listed above have amazing ‘Get Involved’ pages that detail several ways to help end child and forced marriage. You can also get involved by contacting local organizations focused on helping human trafficking victims (whose clients sometimes overlap with forced marriage victims), contacting your state representatives to help get marriage laws changed, and raising awareness and educating people about the issue.You can also get involved by volunteering or interning for one of the organizations: Tahirih in particular has a great internship program that I highly recommend for anyone interested.
can’t talk about periods because it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about their vaginas because it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about issues in other parts of the female reproductive system because cissexism, transphobia and it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about how they don’t like penises because it hurts trans womens feelings
can’t talk about their attraction to female body parts because not every female has [insert body part] and it may hurt trans womens feelings
has to overcome her sexual boundaries because penises are “female organs”
[insert more]
It would be a constant walk on eggshells. They would be always at risk of getting called a cisbian/cissexist/transphobe and so on. We know how gendershits react if you say the “wrong” things. It can be very dangerous.
So who benefits from all this?? Hint: Not lesbians
I’m a trans woman in a relationship with a girl.
- When she talks about her period, I listen. If she is on her period, I offer her support and try to make her comfortable in any ways I can. I’ve thought a thousand times about how I don’t have a female reproductive system, I’m quite used to it – the word ‘period’ isn’t going to upset me. All it means is I can’t talk from experience about periods, so I might start to feel uncomfortable in social situations where such discussion is taking place.
- We have frequent discussions about vaginas, the female reproductive system, issues that target women with a female reproductive system, and about the female body and how beautiful it is. It doesn’t trigger me. At most, it makes me slightly impatient for the later stages of my transition.
- My partner doesn’t particularly dislike penises, but if she told me she doesn’t like them, my response would be something like “me neither.”
- If my partner’s sexual boundaries excluded penises then I would be fine with that, there are plenty of other ways in which to enjoy each other’s bodies.
And the whole egg shells things – Yes, there are many sensitive issues that I have, and I do often get upset about things while my girlfriend is around. For example I was watching her get dressed, and I noticed how well clothes fit her, then I got upset about how my proportions don’t lend themselves so well to female clothing. But I wasn’t there calling her transphobic for getting dressed in front of me? I wasn’t blaming her for how I was feeling? Everybody has sensitive issues, it would be difficult to find a partner who doesn’t have at least a couple of issues that might come up in day to day life; just because trans women may have a concentration of these issues around certain areas doesn’t mean we aren’t viable as female partners?
I’m not saying every trans woman is the same as me (though, looking at other comments people have made, many of us seem to have a similar outlook), what I’m saying is that any number of these supposed reasons may or may not apply to any given trans woman, so they aren’t not reasons enough to rule out trans women as potential partners.
It still stands that for a lesbian (or anyone who dates women) to say, outright, that they don’t date trans women, is transphobic. Even if your standard of woman, or the types of women you’re attracted to might rule out many trans women, there are thousands of trans women whom you wouldn’t know aren’t cis without being told, so to rule those out just because they’re trans is definitely transphobic.
To conclude, all your points are flawed and you need to learn some things.
I’m a cis girl attracted to girls. I am in a relationship with a trans women
- When I’m on my period curled up in pain, she curled around me and tells me she would take the pain away if she could. She gets me a hot drink and chocolate and watches films with me. I don’t hide it from her, she knows how her body works and she’s getting use to how mine works. Not every women has periods, trans or cis.
- We are in a sexual relationship of course we’re going to talk about vaginas, aside from this we talk in general if she has any questions I’ll answer them.
- I don’t have an issue with penises. If I did there are plent of other sexual ‘adventures’ you can have with people.
- Why can’t I talk about an attraction to ‘female’ body part? She’s with a girl she clearly appreciates them too!
As the women above stated my girlfriend has somethings she will get upset about, I know what these are and try to minimise her upset. I know she thinks she’s too tall and wishes she was closer to my height. No matter what happens she can’t change her height, I tell her how amazing her height is, I try to help her accept who she is. She’s got beautiful long legs every time we are out and she’s got her legs out and heels on people approach her and tell her how jealous of her legs they are, sometimes it’s small steps to acceptance that helps her.
Stop generalising trans women. So what if someone other than you benefits from something?
I love my gorgeous girlfriend.
Many many many women love transwomen, again as the lady said above refusing to date a trans person is transphobic. End of story.
I love how cis and trans lesbians came in and ripped this transphobe apart.
Is op alive?
Yes, 911? I just witnessed a murder.
i hate transphobes. they are literally the worst. they’re also dumb as shit. like, their arguments make no sense. like, where do you draw the line for womanhood? not all cis women have periods, or breasts, or a uterus or vagina. so if you don’t have to have those parts to be a cis woman, why would a trans woman have to?
not all cis women produce estrogen. some of them use store-bought, some of them don’t have it at all. if that doesn’t make them not women, why would it make trans women not women?
without doing extensive testing, we have no idea how many cis women have xx chromosomes. but we do know that cis women don’t all have xx chromosomes.
where do you draw the line? i’ll tell you. the circle is labeled “women” and the people who go inside that circle are the people who say they are women
Also to throw this in there, a while after I came out my mom sat me down and told me something she hadn’t told me or my siblings before, we were adopted because my mom was born without a uterus or vaginal canal and had to have a vaginiplasty, she takes the same hormones I do everyday, and she gets extremely uncomfortable when talking about periods or vaginas because of her situation, this is a cis woman who has never had her womanhood questioned in her life, she would never get put into the category of “not woman “ because that’s obviously what she is because that’s what she’s comfortable living as, so the question where do you draw the line for “woman” always makes me think of her, and how given many of your definitions you would be saying she’s not a woman, and it makes it clear just how many women you’re willing to throw under the bus for your own bigoted agenda
honestly these idiot boys just make me feel better and even tho the original garrison trio isnt realistic, I Love It and i wanna be self indulgent.
In a verse where the Original Garrison Trio was A Thing:tm:, you can
bet your ass that both Matt and Shiro, upon really getting to know Keith, are
absolutely astounded that Keith has no personal effects.
His gloves don’t count and the ones
he comes into the Garrison with are kinda gross and tattered anyway.
However they meet, either in the mess hall where the duo
take pity on new boy Keith or in the gym where Shiro sees an aggressive and
young cadet two punches away from punching the bag right out of its ceiling
bolts, it’s definitely not the easiest thing to talk to him.
At least, for the first week. Keith is constantly suspicious
of their intentions, but he doesn’t mind the company. There really could be
worse people to be friendly with.
But not friends. Why would they be
friends? …Are they actually friends?
Matt and Shiro seem to think all
three of them are friends together. A unit. A lot of other people do too after
a month.
It’s about two weeks into their tentative friendship that
they stop by Keith’s room on the way to a study session. The sun’s shining (not
that they can see it), the birds are chirping (not that they can hear any), and
they are 100% ready to have a collective break down in a quiet corner of
whatever common space they can take over.
Shiro and Matt just chat it up while Keith leads the way,
trying to get the shorter cadet in on the subject but he hasn’t quite hit the
same subjects they have.
Keith is there for moral support and to be tutored a little bit.
When they reach the room, the door slides open, the duo are
still chattering but suddenly – they stop.
Shiro is normally a soft spoken
guy, so it’s more alarming when Matt just stops in his tracks.
“So, uh… which side is yours…?” Matt doesn’t even really
need to ask since Keith has already made his way over to the side of the room
with bare walls and the standard regulation bedding and lamp. His roommate has
made more effort to make it homey -
personal pictures and posters taped on the wall and some of his effects
scattered on the bed.
Does Keith even actually live here?
Of course, Keith thinks nothing of it and meets them back at
the door with his books and a look that says “We’re wasting time you idiots,
let’s go.”
He doesn’t know what he’s just
caused.
In fact, Keith doesn’t get what transpired between Shiro and
Matt until about a week later when Matt shows up with an instant camera. Where
did he get it? No one knows. Maybe best not to ask.
There’s lots of pictures taken
throughout one particular day, and the older two sift through the pictures looking for the
best ones. Keith is about to excuse himself when he’s handed a neat stack along
with a roll of tape.
Matt puts on his best practiced “serious look” as he hands
over the pictures and washi tape (that he likely stole from Katie a while back
because it has a robot print all over it) and instructs him, “Tape these to
your wall. Don’t let your roommate outdo you. You must have the better living quarters.”
Matt’s usual bullshit.
It’s actually Shiro that puts up the pictures, with Keith
awkwardly helping. It took a week, since Keith didn’t put them up on his own
and Shiro, having seen the lack of work when going to pick him up, had to get
him started himself.
It’s a little hilarious and really
adorable, how embarrassed Keith gets when the pictures go up and he counts at
least five where they’re smushed into a single frame looking breathless with
laughter.
It doesn’t stop there because once Matt gets into something,
he goes big because he doesn’t want to go home.
Things Matt has left in Keith’s room:
Posters of hover bikes
Posters of pin up girls
Posters of pin up boys
Holographic stickers
A suspiciously labeled envelope of
something that Keith just leaves in his dresser drawer
Strawberry flavored sweets
More questionable paraphernalia
A… black cat plush? Why are its
eyes vaguely purple? That’s not a natural color???
Things Shiro has left in Keith’s room:
More sweets
Two different photo books regarding
travel on tropical islands and beautiful forests
Another poster of a hover bike
A pair of brand new compression
gloves that Keith doesn’t wear for the first week because he loves them but
what the fuck, Shiro?
Some other pictures that Keith
doesn’t remember ever taking
The camera they had used that first
night
Keith never got into the competition aspect of it, but
putting things up on the wall makes him feel… better. His roommate laughs, “It’s
about time!” and Keith considers for a second that, yeah, it probably was about time.
