We can give $500 micro-grants to 100 transgender child sexual abuse survivors of color

Hello beloved friends. I'm turning 30 on April 2 and for my birthday I'm raising funds for Mirror Memoirs, a national storytelling and organizing project uplifting the narratives, healing and leadership of Two Spirit, transgender, intersex, non-binary and queer Black, Indigenous and of color survivors of child sexual abuse, as a strategy to end rape culture and other forms of oppression.

I am so proud and honored to share that I just joined the Mirror Memoirs Board. So much of my political education and healing as a queer survivor of color comes from the gift of knowing and growing with the Mirror Memoirs community. I'll share a few things I learned that helped me in my healing.

One of the first things I learned about the impact of child sexual abuse is that the shame is overwhelming. So many of us never tell our stories because of that intense and suffocating shame. We are never seen, and we think we have to bear the pain alone.

I also learned that childhood trauma blots out your memories. Your mind protects you by hiding the unbearable until you might be ready to absorb it, possibly forever. I didn’t know my story was in me until I started working to resource efforts to end child sexual abuse in my early 20s. I was triggered everyday at work and I didn’t know why until it broke open a floodgate of memory, leaving me stunned and scrambling to make sense of what I was given access to.

Therapy and loved ones helped immensely. One of the most soothing balms to my confused and aching heart was watching Secret Survivors. Seeing other survivors tell their stories so beautifully and openly showed me that there were others, that it was okay to tell, that there is power in sharing what happened to you.

I stitched together my story and chose to be witnessed. Responses were varied. Some people were wholly supportive, some expressed disbelief, some were angry, and I was still learning how to be okay with all of that.

I also started gravitating toward spaces with people who shared my identities, in search of community. Something always felt a little off. I made islands of my otherness wherever I went. If I was in mainstream queer spaces, then being bipolar and Korean made me feel isolated. If I was in middle class Korean spaces, it was my queerness and growing up poor. And always, my experiences of child sexual abuse and violence made me feel like I was on the smallest island.

When Amita invited me to tell my story for the Mirror Memoirs audio archive, I said yes with my whole heart. The experience of being witnessed by a queer survivor of color who I didn’t have to explain anything to, who asked me questions I didn’t know I’d always wanted to be asked, who built a container for the conversation where I felt safe and seen and heard — was one of the most powerfully healing experiences of my life and was truly a gift.

I’ve had the joy and privilege of loving, learning from, and being in shared struggle with QTIBIPOC survivors of child sexual abuse. These are the gifts I’ve been given while in community with these brilliant, big hearted, beautiful folks. This is why Mirror Memoirs means so much to me. Support our QTIBIPOC survivor fund. Celebrate with me.