It started with a childhood friend. Scrolling through Facebook, I’d always noticed his name, but never thought much of it. He always posted Republican rhetoric, NRA ads and pro-life propaganda that sometimes left me reeling, but usually, I just continued about my day. He had the right to his opinion just as much as anyone else. I could respect that, if not the ideas themselves.
But with the break of the recent Donald Trump tapes — we all know the one I’m talking about — it became too much to handle. I had to take a break from social media. Make “triggered” jokes if you will but listening to a man who could soon be my president describe groping women over and over makes the sexual assault survivor in me a little queasy. When I did go on Facebook later that day, there was my childhood friend, crying “locker room talk” and “all men talk like that.” I bit my tongue, clicked on his profile and swiftly unfriended him.
This tiny protest did nothing, objectively. He will not reconsider his words just because my cat videos no longer show up on his feed. If he even notices my absence at all, he will likely roll his eyes, make a comment about bleeding heart liberals or social justice warriors. And I am fine with that. I will still cherish the times we played tag together; I will always love his mother’s lemon bars. But we have grown up.
It wasn’t hard eliminating a boy I hadn’t seen in seven years from my life, but when it became people I cared about, people I respected and people I loved, then it was hard. When it became my favorite teacher from middle school, the one that inspired me to go into education, I sighed. When it became the person I sat across from in every math class I had in high school, I grumbled. When it became the male coworker who’d driven me home a million times, I told myself that there was no way he could really believe all of that.
But that’s the thing — he did. He does. Whether you’re a diehard Trump supporter or the voter who likes his economic policy, but consider yourself more socially liberal — by supporting Trump you take part in normalizing his sexual assault. It does not matter if you don’t wear “Make America Great Again” on your chest. It does not matter if you’ve never been to a rally or volunteered. It does not matter if you’ve decided that Hillary’s email scandal is just too much to trust her with national security. If you look at a man who has been accused — at the time of my writing — by 12 women of sexual assault and continue to say, “This is the man I want to lead my country,” then you clearly do not care about sex crime survivors.
Maybe you’re apprehensive. Maybe you look at the women — including former beauty pageant queens, entire groups of young women, reporters, his own ex-wife — and think, “Surely, they’re exaggerating,” or “It isn’t that big of a deal.” Maybe you think I’m too extreme for cutting off Trump supporters who were once good friends of mine. Maybe you find his personal life and politics easy to separate. That is fine — just let me know, so I know who I can no longer feel safe around.
When I came forward about my first sexual assault, I was greeted with accusations of my own. There was no way I could be telling the truth. The perpetrator cared about me. I felt completely helpless — I came forward about being assaulted, and the first question I was asked about was what I was wearing and what I’d done to egg him on. I was 10 years old.
Excuse my sensitivity. Or don’t. Just know that every time you donate or phone bank or rally, you are a part of the problem. When you vote for Trump, you are telling young girls across the country that their bodies are open for the taking. Trump is normalizing sexual assault and while I may miss my relationship with my childhood friend, I prefer not being reminded of the worst time of my entire life every day.
Emilee McCubbins, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at EMcCubbins20@wooster.edu.