This podcast is an extended version of an essay I published earlier this evening. I’ll post that essay below. If this blog and its corresponding podcast speak to you, don’t just share it: let it move you into action.
(1 in 4) + (1 in 6) = the math that guarantees i won't shut up about epstein+ trump
christian nationalists and their fascist elite enablers are a danger to your kids
Jul 27, 2025
it’s weird. when i first started writing on this app, i assumed i was here to write about being a nonbinary trans person and to say: “hey, we’re not the scary people you think we are.” what i wasn’t quite prepared for was how this moment would require me to step into my truth as a survivor of childhood sexual assault.
as a survivor, what i was told— on loop— was that no one cared what i had to say, no one would believe me, and what i survived was too shameful to even talk about in polite society.
meanwhile, i have lived in a “polite” society that makes euphemisms to protect child rapists while joking about incest and lolitas, as if we were willing participants in the harm we survived. because that’s what child rapists, and the adult women who enable them, tell us: to just be quiet, don’t talk about it, and pretend it didn’t happen.
but when this all started happening— from the domestic abuse on a national scale that is fascism, to the direct connection between Christian nationalists and child rape— i thought: god dammit, if these people think they’re gonna take me out without a fight, they’ve got another thing coming.
so i started to talk to other survivors here, and i’ve gotten through to people who haven’t had to live through early childhood sexual harm. this moment is such a disturbing and dangerous time, but one of the things that keeps me hopeful is hearing, finally, all of the survivors of childhood sexual assault, who were so marginalized during the #MeToo movement, are finally speaking up.
this is no shade on the #MeToo movement in particular, so much as it’s all the shade on adults, writ large, who have been groomed to treat CSA survivors as freak shows, as if simply bearing witness to what happened to us is “icky” and we should just shut up about it because people are too uncomfortable to face that, in this country, 1 in 4 kids recorded female at birth and 1 in 6 kids recorded male at birth are sexually assaulted during their childhoods.
and, once more with feeling, people who rape kids? it’s never a one-off situation. these people never stop. it is exceptionally rare that kids who survive this kind of harm are one-time victims. their abuse is often chronic, and the reason it goes on is because the adults in their lives are so horrified by the truth that the only thing they seem to want to do is not believe the kids, because if they’re believed, it cracks everything wide open.
the rape of children in this country is endemic. every single one of you know a CSA survivor. every single one of you, whether you know it or not, know a kid right now who is being sexually harmed. and, adults, it’s time for you to grow up and face facts. because there are kids all around you who need your help.
many of us don’t make it out of childhood, and when we do, we’re often shamed into silence for decades. this has to stop. if this moment is coming to the fore, it is my sincere wish that you not approach this Epstein situation as some salacious bit of gossip, because when you treat it like theater, you are telling kids (once more) that their sexual harm is a form of passive entertainment for you—something to laugh uncomfortably about on a podcast or joke about between friends.
no more jokes.
stop laughing.
start getting angry.
start believing kids.
start demanding age-appropriate education around bodies and consent so that kids have the language to tell a safe person that they’re being harmed— and find a fucking better system for reporting, because when a kid tells you they’re being harmed by a family member, and then you report that info back to the family member, you endanger kids’ lives.
if you want to know why christian nationalists don’t want consent, emotional education, age-appropriate sex ed, and safe groups for gender minorities in schools— it’s not because these programs are a “danger to kids”— it’s because those programs are a direct threat to people who rape kids.
i’ve worked in community college for over two decades. i cannot tell you how many times i have been the first safe adult a student has come to for help. and i don’t just give them a phone number for resources. i follow through and make sure they have the resources they need to get safe. because god dammit: i didn’t survive hell to keep my head down and play it safe.
these people who are in power right now? i know them well, and i know the danger they pose to your kids, and they have spent millions of dollars creating propaganda to get you scared of the very people who are standing in the breach to help young people who feel like they have no safe space to go.
so if you’re reading this and the words i write mean anything to you, honor my words by letting them shape your behavior. speak up more than you have before. shut down jokes about rape and incest. rebuke people who are trying to scapegoat vulnerable people. and, above all, call out christian nationalists’ pearl-clutching bullshit, because everything they have ever done (from making republicans protect “child brides,” to axing sex ed programs, vilifying PFLAG, and stirring up disinfo about women’s and gender studies programs) has always been a coordinated effort to protect themselves from being held accountable for their endemic sexual violence.
i don’t know about you, but i refuse to shut up about this. because we absolutely DO need to protect kids, and it’s from the christian nationalists.
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