Every couple of months, a sexual assault will appear in the headlines and as the topic is ‘trending’, everyone gets very angry and passionate to do something, but only for a few days… then of which we resume back to our day to day lives and forget all that is going around the world.

So, I will not jump on the bandwagon of this #MeToo… for we shouldn’t have to ‘out’ ourselves as survivors…

For men have *always* seen the gendered violence happening around them (and/or being perpetrated by them) — they just haven’t done anything about it… Because it shouldn’t matter how many women, femmes, and gender neutral & non-conforming folk speak their truths…

Because it shouldn’t be on our shoulders to speak up. It should be the men who are doing the emotional labor to combat gendered violence…Because I know, deep down, it won’t do anything. Men who need a certain threshold of survivors coming forward to “get it” will never get it.

Because the focus on victims and survivors — instead of their assailants and enablers—is something we need to change.

This #MeToo has been used by millions of individuals — some survivors, some are not, but I say that most of them have no idea that the hashtag evokes a deep personal fracturing for many, including myself, and because of that I can’t join them…

How can one reduce the trauma of what they’ve faced in life to a mere hashtag?

This push to disclose sexual harassment and assault on social media, though admirable in spirit, feels more like an ultimatum than a choice… saying something feels impossible and saying nothing feels untenable.

I don’t know whom #MeToo is for, but it sure as hell isn’t me…

I want someone else out there to know that it’s possible to be more than just a hashtag, it’s more than the nightmare, more than the recovery, more than the way you feel when you see sexual assault in the news, again. I wish there had been someone to tell me that it’s okay if the only thing you can handle is trying to be okay. Plenty of people talk about how brave it is to speak out, and they’re right. It is brave to speak out, but that doesn’t make you a coward if you don’t.

Silent or not, activist or not, we are all worthy, and we will be just as worthy when #MeToo stops trending and actual appropriate actions to the stories we hear take place.