A very busy week!

This week I have attended a lot of side events dealing with the topic of violence and we have been promoting the WAGGGS 'Stop the Violence' campaign. I want to share my experience of violence:

Aged 13

I left school due to violence. Every day at school I faced taunts for being asthmatic, for how I expressed my gender identity, and for being smart. This constant pressure lead me to try and hide who I was and lead to suicidal thoughts. Instead my family were supportive and I left formal education.

Aged 16

Walking down the street of a European capital city in a crowd of my peers a stranger grabbed my chest. I pushed him away and the crowd only saw my action and I was perceived as the aggressive one. The incident was the trigger of regular panic attacks over the following months.

Aged 17

Whilst teaching English in rural Africa, I was attacked based on judgements made based on my age, sex and perceived sexuality and gender identity.

Aged 18

I went off to university and got into my first long term relationship. After a couple of months this relationship turned abusive and she was controlling when I saw my friends, where I went and how I spent my own money. In total I went through around £2000 of my personal savings. She resented me going away to guiding events and as it was a same-sex relationship I didn't know where to turn. After 9 months - whilst away doing fieldwork - I found the courage to end the relationship.

At university

 

Throughout my time at university I have been subjected to homophobic abuse. People shouting at me in the street, people inappropriately touching my in night clubs, and stopping people, both male and female, from assaulting my friends. When I reported the assault to the police there wasn't enough evidence to press charges. 

 

Last summer

 

I moved from a shared house 5 minutes walk from my workplace to another over an hour bus ride away because my homophobic housemate decided he would ignore my existence and pretend that I wasn't there. The daily journey was better than the mental effect of living in such an environment. 

 

All this violence occurred before I was 21 years old. Unfortunately, my experiences are not unique.

 

Throughout all these years guiding has provided a way through - they helped me to build my confidence when I was insecure, they taught me my rights as a human being, and they offered me non-formal education which developed my key skills after I dropped out of school.

 

As such I call on you to ADD YOUR VOICE to the WAGGGS 'Stop The Violence' campaign.