For the right to our own bodies?

Zora with help from Alana

Trigger warning:

• childhood sexual abuse
• childhood abuse
• explicit/offensive language

This zine has a history - like probably all our zines. Already in the summer I was invited to a panel discussion at a feminist conference. The topic of the panel discussion: "The right to our bodies". As a non-binary person, I was invited to speak about the legal victory of the Andalusian High Court of Justice, which recognised my right to be registered in the Central Register of Foreigners as a non-binary person, with an "indeterminate" sex/gender, or with an "X".
Very well. I agreed, and I thought that, as it is a round table, this would be easy. I thought I would also talk about the difficulties we non-binary people have in accessing hormone treatment or other gender affirming treatments.
But two weeks before the conference, Zora became upset. "How can you talk about the right to our bodies without talking about the violation of this right in our childhood, without talking about sexual abuse," she asked me. Zora got so bad, her post-traumatic stress so triggered, that I decided to cancel my participation. There was no way to help Zora overcome this PTSD episode by maintaining my participation. Two days later Zora did the cover drawing, and it seemed better. But another trigger a few days later, and the issue was reopened. And, although I had cancelled, with the date of the conference approaching Zora was more and more stirred up.
So, this mini-zine is the result of Zora's process of confronting the issue of "Right to our body". It is the result of her anger, and also of her pain. I hope this zine helps Zora to let go.

Alana, 29 October 2023

I'm fed up! I'm angry! I'm mad! I'm furious! Always, when feminists talk about the right to "our" body, they talk about the right to abortion, about the rights of whores, about reproductive rights, about only yes means yes, and, if we are lucky, about trans rights. But, almost never do they talk about us, about our right to our bodies, about the girls and boys and other children who are sexually abused, every day, every hour. It seems that our right to our bodies does not matter. Every year, in Spain alone, 371,200 children suffer sexual abuse. One in five. But we are just children. It seems that we don't matter.

Every year, 371,200 children. 53.000 children every day, 2.200 children every hour, 37 children every minute, one child every two seconds. How many lives are destroyed just while you are reading this?

And I speak from experience, as a girl abused by my father. I could tell you about the pain, the trauma, the rage. I could tell you about the destruction of my ability to trust, even to trust my own body, about what my body tells me, about boundaries (what are boundaries? why have boundaries when no one cares about your boundaries?), about what a "yes" or a "no" feels like (how? I don't know. I have no idea).

But I'm just a child. An abused child. I know that my right to my little body doesn't matter to you.

Where are you feminists? I don't hear your screams of indignation and rage. I don't see you on the streets. I don't see your demonstrations, your feminist strikes.

One in five children suffer sexual abuse, the vast majority in our family, this institution of "care and love". Fuck it!

One in five. In other words, in one out of five families there is an abuser, male, female, or non-binary. In one out of five families!

And I also insist on this: although the majority are male abusers - men: fathers, grandfathers, older brothers, cousins, uncles, ... - there are also female abusers - mothers, grandmothers, older sisters, cousins, aunts, ... And if we look beyond sexual abuse - physical abuse, psychological abuse, unwanted/unconsented touching, invasions of our intimate space (our body after all) - I don't even know if the majority are men.

I look at my community - Andrea's inner community, not the inner family - and I see a lot of abuse from our mother. Abuse as shattering as our father's sexual abuse. Touching our penis in the shower when we were already eight, nine, ten years old. Unwanted, non-consensual touching. With every non-consensual touch our sense of boundaries, our trust in what our body tells us, is destroyed a little more. With each non-consensual caress you tell me "Your body is mine to do with as I please". It is a more subtle violence, but at the end of the day it is as violent as sexual abuse, it destroys you from the inside.

When I think of family, the only associations that come to mind are violence, sexual abuse, mistreatment, abandonment, neglect, manipulation.

In one in five families there is an abuser of whatever gender. And, I think, maybe the problem is the family itself. I don't need to read Marxist or anarchist essays to know that we'd better get rid of the family now. Fuck the family, fuck the couple as a way of life, fuck marriage, Let's get rid of the family now! But NOW!

Now I have a nice community, Andrea's internal community. I would have liked to have had a community as a girl. I would have liked to be able to get out of my family's cell, to find people who love me. But almost everyone lives in a similar cell. And I didn't want to change cells.

When do we finally get rid of the family, do we build communities of mutual support, of affection? Communities that allow us, us children, to decide with which adults we want and can build our bonds, that do not trap us with the parents we happen to have. Because we are not the property of our parents. We are children, but we are free beings with rights. And also with needs.

I don't care how much love you think you're giving me when what comes to me is zero. Because you do not love me, but your image of me. You don't see me. All your love goes to this image, and nothing gets to me. And, I think, many children live this in our families, in our cells.

And my little body tenses up when I hear someone pronouncing "parental rights". What rights? The right to abuse us, to manipulate us, to indoctrinate us, to mistreat us? Where are my rights?

To hell with the family! To hell with parental rights! And where are you feminists in this, our, fight against the family? Have you forgotten that the family is the patriarchal institution, the basis of patriarchy? Let's destroy the family - NOW!