In the mid ‘90s, when I was a baby stripper, I rode the 22 Fillmore to Market Street Cinema in San Francisco, a filthy nude strip club where I danced three or four times per week. One time, a man sat next to me. My heavy gig bag was on the floor, between my feet. It overflowed with zebra print spandex booty shorts, red gingham bikinis, glitter, purple hairspray that smelled like bubblegum and Hello Kitty everything.

The man’s legs pressed against me, so I inched closer to the window to scoot away from him. He looked down my shirt, put his arm around my shoulders. He sniffed my neck. I looked ahead, frozen. We sat like that for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably sixty seconds. The bus lurched ahead, up and down the steep hills from Hayes Valley towards Market Street. At the next stop, I got up, moved to another seat where I sat alone and watched the wet fog darken the city.

A couple stops later, the man walked towards the front of the bus. When he reached where I was sitting, he punched my head. His fist knocked me hard, near my eye with enough force to slam my face against the window with a loud crack. Then the man stepped off the bus. I rubbed my forehead to check for blood. But there was just a knot.

Around me, passengers were engrossed in their quiet passenger activities: women with lots of shopping bags flipped through paperback novels, young men nodded off to whatever beats blew through their headphones. A man used a rolled-up newspaper as a pillow and dozed. Girls wrapped their fuzzy scarves tighter around their necks. No one responded to the man who punched my head.

“That guy hit me,” I said to the driver. I figured he didn’t hear me. “That man. The guy who just got off the bus?” I said. As if my further explanation would elicit a different response. The driver said to the air in front of him, “Did you want to get off here?” I said, “No”. Or maybe I said nothing. Maybe I went back to my seat for the rest of the ride to Market Street. Maybe I just stood there, stunned and ashamed, like I had spoken out of turn. Like I was making a fuss over nothing. I remember heat. My face and neck burning red.

I never told anyone about the man who punched me on the 22 until now. This is the quiet violence sex workers face every day because of gender discrimination, stigma and whorephobia. It’s easier if we stay silent and pretend it’s not happening. But it’s also easier for us. Because if we speak out about violence against sex workers, we will be blamed for living a “risky” lifestyle. We will be fingered the Whore.

When a sex worker is attacked or raped, she is told she chose a job that puts her “at risk.” She is thought to have low self-worth, daddy issues or vague emotional damage. It’s assumed she has been abused, forced, or trafficked, even though she has one of the only jobs in America where women make more than men and always have. Sex workers earn as much as the average attorney with no formal training, credentials, or education.

How dare a woman hold a vocation where she has agency over her own body? How dare she have the audacity to perform high femme sexuality for decent, motherfucking money? When a sex worker is punched in the head, pretend it never happened so she can blame herself accordingly for existing in the first place.

It’s a crime to be a sex worker in America, to be a woman of color, to flaunt our curves, to show our nipples, to utilize our bodies and sexuality in a way that supports our lives while simultaneously being denied financial access to resources. It’s illegal to thrive in a primarily high femme workforce.

Take a look:

When every manager in every strip club commands me to take off my clothes in his office so he can see my body. When he pats my ass, laughs, tells me, “You’re a good lookin’ woman.” When that same manager tells a gorgeous black stripper he already has “enough black girls,” even though she used to work there a year ago, even though she traveled hundreds of miles to work there now. When a strip club manager watches me dance naked on a cold stage alone, turns to another man and asks loudly enough for all of us to hear in a bored, tired voice, “Should I hire her?”

When a table of six men and women watch intently while we dance topless on stage. When they point, whisper and don’t tip—not even one dollar. When that stripper walks off stage after her set and tells them we survive on tips and that it’s rude to not tip when they are sitting that close to the stage.

When the middle-aged white man in their group complains to my manager and I can hear him say he has never been told to tip and would not be back because how dare I. When I am already locked in an embrace with another joyful, tipsy customer who is saying he loves me, and that I am gorgeous, and he tips me, and this helps for about ten minutes because fuck that other customer.

I never told anyone about the man who punched me on the 22 until now. This is the quiet violence sex workers face every day because of gender discrimination, stigma and whorephobia.
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When every twofer Tuesday, a customer slides his fingers underneath my second layer G-string. When I say no. When I grab his hand. When I flash him my best tight smile that contains an additional warning. When I move his hand to my hips. When he grins and says, “Don’t worry.” When I say, “We’re on camera.” When I move his hand. Again.

When a man stands in the doorway of a private room and doesn’t let me leave. When his arms are up, blocking me, his palms on the edges of the door frame. When a black stripper hears me scream and appears behind him, grabs him by his t-shirt, pulls him off of me and he runs. When she says nothing, just locks eyes with me, pivots, and slowly walks away. When I realize she’s walking slowly because she is very pregnant.

When a man slips GHB in our drinks and three women go to the ER, but one is an immigrant and too scared to go to the authorities and all three women have kids under twelve years old. When security gives no fucks. When a customer asks me if I am fifty years old. When a man asks me to leave with him for two hundred dollars and gets angry and confused when I decline his offer. When he pontificates about God and Jesus and his wife. When he tells me about his fancy room at the Ritz Carlton and shows me pictures of his boats. When I finally say, “You’re just used to getting what you want” and I walk away.

When a close friend tells me in a low, distraught voice about another trans woman sex worker who was stalked by an ex-boyfriend and his accomplice, dragged out of her apartment by her hair and shoved into a van to be murdered. When she tells me that the girl’s neighbor heard screams and wrote down the license plate of the van and the cops pulled the ex-boyfriend over and he went to jail. When she tells me about court and having to testify and how she lives in constant terror. When a pretty famous male writer says to a room full of students, “Everyone loves a whorehouse” and no one flinches except for me.

When I bite my lip until it bleeds. When I clench my teeth until I have lock jaw. When the migraines kick in and I am at the strip club working and I keep dancing because: rent.

When woke-as-fuck friends make flippant, derogatory remarks about sex workers when we have been lamenting violence against women of color and LGTBQ communities for decades. When people I trust and love exclude sex workers from their feminist agenda at an event that is supposed to support marginalized communities. When I send a photo from the marquis across the street on Sunset Boulevard outside of said event that flashes in yellow block letters, “Girls Girls Girls” and watch it ten times because I need a reminder that I exist.

On June 2, when I marched for sex worker rights after SESTA/FOFSTA legislation further criminalized sex workers and feminists, queers, and liberals mostly didn’t show. When bystanders looked at us with obvious disgust on their faces. When more legislation passed that digitally erases sex workers us from the internet—a place where we screen clients and always have. This is violence against sex workers. When my friend’s Instagram accounts are seized by the FBI. When we are shadow-banned, deleted, erased, incarcerated. Gone.

Want To Know Why Tumblr Is Cracking Down On Sex? Look To FOSTA/SESTA

When a man tells me, he could never love me because I am a hooker, just like his mother.  

When this happens, I get back up. When this kind of violence happens, I listen to sex workers talk about cleaning houses, being homeless, being hungry, being attacked, being out of their meds, being broke, being raped. When this happens, I lend them my car or money. When this happens, we go to IHOP for sausage and pancakes. When this happens, I send emails and cry because I’m calling out powerful people who are in a position to help and friends who are silently standing by, pretending sex workers are not being murdered and erased and I tell them they have made a grave error. When this happens, I get scared. But after this happens, I get back up.

On April 11, 2018,  Trump signed the SESTA/FOFSTA bill designed to appeal to evangelical anti-sex worker conservatives with a thin promise to end child trafficking but really, it was intended to attack sex workers from thriving in a digital marketplace. Backpage and other adult-content hosting sites were shut down by an overwhelming majority, ruling in favor of “third party liability” which holds websites and social media responsible for child trafficking and other illegal activities.

When a pretty famous male writer says to a room full of students, “Everyone loves a whorehouse” and no one flinches except for me.
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The effect this has on sex workers is monumental and devastating. Sex workers have always been sagacious about using the internet as a survival tool to encrypt our identities and screen clients. But criminalization, stigma, and whorephobia continues to cockblock. Monday, December 17, 2018 — the International day to end violence against sex workers — Tumblr decided to ban all adult content, erasing our identities from the mediascape, rendering us invisible. But we will not be erased.

When whorephobia happens, sex workers become homeless because they lack resources, family, and opportunities to find work. They are notoriously vulnerable to violence, rape, discrimination and murder, particularly women of color, disabled and trans sex workers. This year 70% of sex worker deaths were POC and trans. Banishment from the internet makes our livelihood more dangerous. Extreme criminalization and femme erasure on a massive scale makes our lives much more difficult and scary. Evangelical stigma surrounding sex and sex workers must be crushed with the highest stiletto. When SESTA passed, we met secretly.

When I send a photo from the marquis across the street that flashes in yellow block letters, “Girls Girls Girls” and watch it ten times because I need a reminder that I exist.
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On Monday, we gather at the women’s center and hear the names of the sex workers who died in 2018—three times more than last year, prior to the passing of SESTA. Votives glow as the names are called along with the places where they lived. Our hands are linked. We are building momentum. I’m not the baby stripper I used to be—I’ve been sharpening my red rhinestone claws and I’ve been raising my voice. I’ve got pink Hello Kitty pepper spray for the next person who tries to punch me in the head. And when decriminalization happens—and it will happen—our glittering femme workforce will not merely survive, we will rise.

On the subway recently, while semi-purposefully eavesdropping, I overheard a woman telling her friend that she no longer needed her vibrator because she had a new boyfriend. Her friend laughed in agreement. I attempted to not make a judgmental face, lest I blow my cover. Not once did this woman mention that her new boyfriend was a rock star in the bedroom or that he was giving her the best orgasms of her life. She simply correlated the having of a boyfriend to the idea that she no longer needed to masturbate.

This sentiment wasn’t novel; I had heard this exact sentence multiple times from various women throughout the past decade of my life, and the idea has always struck me as odd and archaic. A satisfying sex life with a partner is awesome and a base level of what women deserve in relationships. However, a relationship is not a substitute for masturbation. This is not an either-or situation.

Women can have both. I’m unsure why so many women—and let’s be real, cisgender women in relationships with men— believe they can only be giving themselves pleasure when no man is there to do it for them. Men certainly don’t make declarative statements like this when they enter into relationships. Masturbating shouldn’t be viewed as a consolation prize to a partner. Women deserve to have healthy and satisfying sex lives no matter their relationship status.  

By sheer luck, I’ve had the pleasure of spending my life surrounded by women who own their sexuality and eagerly share the most intimate details of their sex lives. In high school my best friends and created a holiday dinner party where we got dolled up, cooked our best homemade appetizers, snuck in a bottle of wine, and gifted each other the latest and greatest vibrators that our high school budgets could afford, which is to say no one received a Rabbit. I was lucky to have a group of friends who never associated masturbation with sex with a partner.

She simply correlated the having of a boyfriend to the idea that she no longer needed to masturbate.
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It wasn’t until college I realized this wasn’t the norm. During this time I had multiple women confide in me that they’d never masturbated, and for years I didn’t believe them. However, it’s been reported nearly 1 and 7 women have never masturbated in their lifetime, while 95% of men have reported masturbating. These uneven statistics give a clear picture of how women are made to feel about their sexuality.

It shouldn’t be surprising, seeing as we live in a culture that cultivates the idea that vaginas are inherently gross.  Most notably, we’ve been sold Summer Eve’s “washes” and douches, which have explicitly advertised the notion you can “fix” this gross/dirty vagina crisis. These products have been successfully mainstreamed despite the evidence proving douching can be harmful. The fear they are selling is working. In 2015, a study in Great Britain found that the majority of women have anxiety surrounding their partner’s perceived reaction to their body, and the fear surrounding their own bodies led to a discrepancy in overall sexual enjoyment.

Our lack of knowledge around female anatomy and sexual pleasure begins in the classroom. Only 13 states require sex education to be medically accurate, leaving the rest of country to teach whatever is deemed best practice at their school. Pleasure, consent, and LGBTQ topics are often lacking in these curriculums. In the school of pop culture we have celebrities such as DJ Khaled saying he wouldn’t give oral sex, despite believing a woman should be giving it.

Many of us grown up believing that keeping men sexually satisfied is our priority. Grandmothers, aunts, and older sisters have warned us that sexually dissatisfied men will wander. Examining this combination of societal constructs and constraints, it’s not surprising women don’t feel as comfortable seeking pleasure for themselves. Society wants women to fear themselves; it’s more profitable and ensures the patriarchy remains intact.

Right now, sex is still largely seen as for cisgender men. We center penetrative, heterosexual sex when we talk about and teach sex. To children, sex is defined as when a penis enters a vagina, as a means of reproduction, and we define the lack of having that experience as “virginity,” regardless of any other sexual activity. And there are still people who believe the clitoral orgasm is a lie, or that women don’t need or want sexual pleasure the same as men.

It shouldn’t be surprising, seeing as we live in a culture that cultivates the idea that vaginas are inherently gross.
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The fact is, masturbation is healthy and natural for everyone. It has a slew of positive side effects. It’s been proven to relieve stress, help you sleep better, boost your mood and relieve muscle tension. It can literally make you a healthier, happier person. But even if it didn’t, the act of masturbating— of understanding one’s sexual organs and being able to give oneself pleasure— is important on its own. The women’s movement wants equal pay, equal job opportunities, and access to safe health care.

We often discuss equality in relation to things we can see and count, how much women make per dollar compared to men, the percentage of women who hold congressional and senate seats, the number of female CEO’s, etc. While it’s more difficult to quantify female sexual pleasure, it doesn’t make it less important in the overall picture of equality. Women figuring out what they want sexually is just one of the ways for them to figure out what they want everywhere else in their life. By equalizing pleasure, women are prioritizing themselves.  

I hope that woman on the subway learns that having a boyfriend doesn’t mean she needs to stop masturbating. Masturbation is a way to helps us equalize pleasure and allow women to focus on their wants and needs, outside of a relationship. Each aspect of our lives that we take ownership of and view as having value brings us one step closer to general equalization across all platforms. By leaving one out we will continue to have inequality, all the pieces matter.  No matter what, women deserve healthy and satisfying sexual lives. This does not have to include a partner.

By Reese Piper

Rushing off the subway platform, I race through the crowded streets to try to make lunch with my friend. I’ve canceled on her twice this week, something she isn’t exactly thrilled about. As I cross an intersection, my foot catches the curb and I tumble to the ground, my phone smashing into the busy street. Grabbing it quickly, my daily reminders flash through the cracked screen — wash dishes, clean room, buy tampons, email manager.

I groan, remembering that I was supposed to do all of these things before lunch. How could I forget, again?

The tasks would take my friend less than an hour to finish, but errands require an entire morning for me to complete. I start to panic, contemplating how I will squeeze them into my schedule now. Overwhelmed by the thought of having to sit down and socialize while feeling on edge, I call my friend to cancel. She digs into me for being inconsiderate. I head home, filled with shame, but instead of beginning my tasks, I push the clothes on my bed aside, turn off my phone, and crawl under the covers.

I don’t resurface until the next day.

My inability to properly plan ahead and complete daily tasks has dwarfed my personal growth and well-being since I moved away from home seven years ago. I live in a constant state of disorder, expressed through missed appointments, forgotten text messages, and errands and assignments that take twice as long than my peers to complete. Even tidying the garbage littered across my apartment feels too overwhelming. My poor organizational and cleaning skills have fractured my relationships, prevented me from thriving in jobs, and in the process, destroyed my self-worth.

I tried various planners and organizational apps. Nothing worked. Frustrated, I reached out for help multiple times, relaying to various therapists my struggles with organization and cleanliness and other ailments — such as insomnia, a tendency to get lost in obsessive thoughts, and an inability to switch between tasks. Not one specialist connected the dots. They viewed disorganization and forgetfulness as easily amendable, and never searched for the source of my struggles.

I live in a constant state of disorder.

My last therapist suggested a new productivity app that had promising results. When I told her it didn’t help, she dismissed my organizational concerns altogether, with a dismissive, “Don’t worry, you’ll get more organized when you’re older.” I laughed bitterly. I had been in therapy for three years and my chaotic schedule had not improved with time. Her words were crushingly easy to translate: Don’t be lazy, work harder.

But the thing is, I was grown up — and her words stung deeper than she realized because I’ve heard similar statements from my friends and family before, many of whom view my disarray as a sign of laziness, unintelligence, and selfishness. And after each attempt to bring structure to my life failed, it became hard not to see myself that way too.

Defeated, I lamented my woes to a friend one afternoon. When I mentioned that I obsessively ruminate — something I rarely admit to anyone — a light flashed. “Has anyone ever suggested Autism?” she asked.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental condition that’s thought to be primarily expressed through differences in socializing, communicating, and repetitive behavior. Lesser known are its effects on executive functioning (EF) — which can be defined as a transit map in our brains that tell us how to plan and organize, keep track of time, and remember information in the moment.

Slow EF can bubble into missed appointments, lack of planning ahead, or getting so fervently drawn into the matter at hand that remembering to do basic tasks like washing the dishes fall by the wayside. Yet even though a strong connection between EF and autism has been documented since the ’90s, it’s absent on CDC’s list of symptoms, and is not widely known to the public. Teachers and therapists don’t equate difficulty accomplishing daily living tasks with ASD. Continually showing up late doesn’t raise a flag like, say, lack of eye-contact readily does.

New research, however, is shedding more light on how EF affects autistic people, especially those socialized as girls. It’s presumed that autistic girls adapt better in life since many display stronger social skills. But a five-year study published this year in Autism Research unveiled a different layer — autistic girls are struggling in their ability to function in daily life, perhaps even more than their male counterparts. “Our results indicate relative weaknesses for females compared to males diagnosed with ASD on executive function and daily living skills,” the report noted.

In other words, autistic girls might seem better at communicating, but that’s not bleeding into their ability to function at home.

My therapist was stunned when I broached autism. She hesitantly said, “But you don’t seem atypical.” Like so many people, she believes autism manifests through missed social cues or lack of eye contact, neither of which I possess. ASD is the boy from Atypical and Parenthood, obsessed with routine and order. The person who seems “different” in conversation. My disarray doesn’t fit this mold, and so was never seen as a neurodiverse trait.

The study looked at children and adolescents, which left me wondering — what about adult women? Are there women who pass socially but have difficulties navigating the pressures of daily life? I posted the question online, and a flood of responses came in within minutes.

Sue is a social butterfly and works four different jobs providing support and mentorship for people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. The 34-year-old is successful, but struggles to remember appointments, manage money, and clean her room. She was a strong student in school, but her executive-function difficulties followed her through life. “I get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.”

She first learned of autism at 22, but didn’t give it a second thought. Gregarious and emphatic, she didn’t see herself as autistic. But as she learned more about the different ways it can affect women, she realized that ASD fit her perfectly. She was diagnosed a decade later. She now lives at home and is grateful for the support her family lends, providing gentle reminders to complete tasks every now and then. “I am in no rush to leave home,” she says.

What It Means To Be Highly Empathetic, And Autistic

Sue’s hesitation to see herself as autistic is not unique for people with executive differences. Corina Becker, vice president of the Autism Women’s Network, says, “The stereotype with autism, women including, is that they are really neat and tidy, and while some of that is true, for many people executive abilities don’t work.”

Melissa, a 32-year-old working mother, struggled to keep on top of daily tasks when she lived alone in her twenties. Trash and dirty clothes piled up in her apartment. More than once, her family came over and threw out all her belongings.

She leans on her husband, who does the cooking and cleaning and checks that her clothes are on correctly before work. She has a master’s degree and a successful career, yet despite her accomplishments, she struggles with poor self-worth as a consequence of her differences in organization. “Most people see me as lazy and gross. I’ve never liked myself much,” she says.

‘The stereotype with autism, women including, is that they are really neat and tidy.’

Different executive abilities particularly hurt those socialized as women or who identify as such. “Women are expected to just pick up daily skills naturally. You’re tainted as a moral failure if you can’t get organized,” says Becker.

Bre from Oklahoma echoes this: “I compare myself a lot to other women. I am frequently disorganized and forget stuff — it’s been a lifelong struggle.”

Melissa was misdiagnosed twice growing up, and it wasn’t until four years ago that a psychiatrist finally recognized ASD in her. Since discovering she’s autistic, she’s started to accept herself — but it has understandably been a long road. It’s easy for un-diagnosed people to compare themselves to allistic (non-autistic) people, and it’s easy for allistic people to judge differences harshly if they don’t recognize a disability. Lauren Kenworthy, PhD, one of the study’s authors and director of the Center Of Autism Spectrum Disorders, notes, “If you’re seen as a lazy and stubborn, people punish you for not getting your act together.”

Why I Wish I’d Been Diagnosed With Autism As A Child

Kenworthy explains that support after a diagnosis can help an autistic person learn how to accommodate their differences. Recognizing areas of strain — that maybe those wont’s are indeed cant’s — they can try different methods, such as finding a routine that works. They may also learn to accept, for instance, that maybe both cleaning and cooking are not possible in one day, as each depletes so much energy.

For too many, though, that crucial diagnosis may never come. People who struggle with executive abilities tend to get ignored. The spectrum is labeled through the ability to communicate and socialize; adapting to daily life is not often factored into the diagnostic process. Difficulty with EF is treated as a byproduct of autism, not a defining feature.

All of which explains why, even though the signs were clearly there, I walked through life unnoticed for so long.

Julia Bascom, the executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and a co-author of the study in Autism Research, explains:

“There’s a long history of research ignoring people’s experiences and voices and focusing on the parts of autism that are most visible to neurotypical researchers. While autistic people tend to describe things like executive functioning, sensory processing, and movement as core parts of our disability, the scientific community unfortunately hasn’t gotten up to speed with us yet.”

I saw myself in every woman I talked to. With each interview, I felt less alone, although I mourned for our shared invisible struggle.

At 25, I finally received my overdue diagnosis. It hasn’t waved a magic wand over my messy room but, at least now, I understand why I struggle with organization, cleanliness, and short-term memory.

Still, while my diagnosis has helped me understand and accept myself, it hasn’t improved my relationships. When my differences surface — when I accidentally wear my shirt backwards, or bleed through my tampon, or tell my friends to meet at the wrong bar, or fall flat on my face in the middle of Union Square — my friends display an eye-roll, a sigh of exasperation, an embarrassed look away, a patronizing laugh, or pure anger.

My best friend that I cancelled lunch with that afternoon laughed when I told her about autism. “You’re not neat and organized. Look at your room, there’s no way you’re autistic. You’re just looking for excuses to not clean!” I recoiled in silence, knowing no amount of explanation would break her stereotypes of autism.

I am happy that, today, I have a better sense of who I am. But every time I look at my messy room, I am reminded of this disheartening fact: So long as my friends, family, and therapists recognize me as allistic, my executive differences will always be interpreted as a personal failure.

Author’s note: To promote acceptance, I refer to myself as an autistic person instead of a person with autism because it is a central part of my identity. The people I featured identify as autistic as well. Additionally, some autistic people do not see their executive differences as a disability — and that is valid. My goal with this article is not to confirm or oppose that, but show how difficult it is to live in a world that doesn’t recognize EF differences.

Because I’m a standup comedian and therefore, by default, kind of a monster, I jokingly compare the broad spectrum of families to The Cosby Show. On television, the Huxtables were the perfect multi-brown family. Off-screen, the family’s persona was ruled by a narcissistic rapist who used that family-friendly image to wreak havoc on the lives of dozens (and dozens) of women. In other words, the only family anyone should be passing judgment on is their own — everyone else’s is an exercise in speculation.

But thanks to Hollywood, daytime television, holiday marketing, social media, and deeply ingrained cultural norms, we have a very fixed idea of what family should look like. As a result, many “non-traditional”—non-binary, non-nuclear families—have trouble legitimizing themselves on the public stage. Non-biological children of adoptive parents, a category in which single sex couples often exist, for example, are constantly faced with social pressures to connect with their birth parents—despite a lifetime of love and support from someone (or someones) to whom they’re not directly related.

When it comes to understanding the deeply personal pain of being estranged from family members, the stigma is as severe as public knowledge is shallow.

People are often ill-equipped to discuss family estrangement without projecting their ideas of how families “should” look—even when a particular familial situation doesn’t fit that narrative.

As someone who’s estranged from a sibling, this is something I know far too well.

I have often found myself in heated arguments with people whom I consider to be good friends because their family dynamics are so wildly different from my own; they’re quick to vilify the concept of estrangement, even if I say that it saved my life.

I used to just take my older brother’s insults — when he called me fat, or ugly, or stupid growing up. I used to take the same insults from his friends. I used to write furiously in a diary about the bruises and the fights. I used to think it was my fault when he blamed me for my own rape, instead of offering the slightest bit of compassion or support. I used to feel ashamed when friends would question my decision to stop speaking to him or when my parents constantly guilt tripped me to make amends because they couldn’t handle the reality that they had raised two children who despised each other. It was the worst kind of toxicity — the kind that demanded my silence so that others could feign normalcy, when there was nothing normal about that relationship.

The Case For Dumping Toxic Friends

I don’t have friends like that anymore — because, much like the people I now call family, I can and do choose better for myself.

Society, however, doesn’t always see that.

While we expect people to demonstrate care for a stranger fleeing a burning building, the same level of empathy—even for a friend fleeing a traumatic family situation—is not extended in the same way.

I can honestly say that the two scenarios are not all that dissimilar. Yet, a one-dimensional depiction of family is so deeply conditioned that it’s almost incomprehensible to imagine one that functions better in fragments. But admitting to being one of those fragmented families is a subject of public derision, not understanding.

In fact, according to Dr. Lucy Blake, psychologist, researcher and author of the 2015 report Hidden Voices: Family Estrangement In Adulthood, 68% of adults estranged from one or more members of their families believe that there is a stigma around family estrangement, citing fears of judgment and assumptions of fault or blame as a source of shame.

“When you’re dealing with [family] relationships, people often underestimate how difficult it can be,” Blake tells me over Skype. She emphasizes that families are complex, because people are complex, but television [paging Cliff Huxtable] and social media often skew public expectations of what family should look like.

It was the worst kind of toxicity — the kind that demanded my silence so that others could feign normalcy.
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“We see perfect images of families on Facebook and Instagram — but the truth is that reality is just a bit more complicated.”

The truth is, it only takes a moment for a person on the periphery to cast a verdict on someone who’s made the decision to go no contact (NC) with family members. Often, though, such a decision was reached after years of trauma at the hands of people society tells us we have to love and respect.

“Estrangement does not result from one conflict, one type of interaction, one type of relationship, one type of parenting style, or one significant event. It is a complex and socially situated phenomenon,” says Kylie Agllias in her 2013 paper entitled “Family Estrangement.”

Her research was quoted in another study—“It Was The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back”—which notes that estranged families are constantly challenged with ongoing public demand to “socially situate themselves and justify the dissolution of a relationship.” This puts NC individuals into a position that erodes the critical boundaries estrangement provides, which many individuals confirm open communication channels did not.

This was certainly the case for Laura*, a 33-year-old sales professional who hasn’t spoken with her mother in more than six years. “Just don’t judge — you can’t assume that everyone has loving, caring parents,” she says. Laura believes that going NC was an act of self-preservation, but it has come at great personal cost. “I’ve definitely lost friendships over the whole thing.”

Laura says that going NC was a decision she was only able to make after years of repeated physical, emotional and psychological abuse.

“One of my earliest memories of my mom, was when my brother dropped pencils on the floor and she rushed into the living room and beat the crap out of me with a broomstick instead,” she says. “I was 4 years old.”

As a child, she didn’t know anything different, but as she grew older, she says she started to pay attention to the effect the relationship had on her, and the people she cared about. In her most traumatic personal moments, she said, her mother had an uncanny ability to manipulate situations and use them against her.

“Two days after a near fatal car accident, she [my mom] said to me ‘you’re so useless — you can’t even kill yourself properly.’

How do you say that to your child?”

According to the authors of “It Was The Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back,” the key to public understanding around why estrangement happens is the backstories.

Abuse, both emotional and physical, is a common denominator in the backstories I heard as to why people choose to go NC with family members. In fact, in Agllias’ 2016 paper entitled “Disconnection and Decision-Marking: Adult Children Explain Their Reasons for Estranging from Parents,” abuse, poor parenting, and betrayal are cited as the three major underlying factors as to why family members become estranged from one another.

For Lavender Wolf, it was a combination of all of the above. I became acquainted with him when we were artists in Berlin, running in similar circles that supported artists of color. As we became closer, we realized we had so much more in common than our occupations. He says that an emotionally detached mother, absent father, and a physically abusive stepfather have permanently altered his family dynamics. After ten years of no contact with his father, Lavender says repeated questions from his former partner led him to reach out during Christmas of 2013. Initially the interaction was cordial, but as Lavender began to open up about his life, he noticed that his father was dismissive of crucial aspects of it.

“I told him about me, about where I live, that I’m gay because he didn’t know that… and he responded to everything except the fact that I’m gay and that I have a partner.” After a lifetime of his absence, it was the indirect rejection of major parts of his life and his past that ultimately led Lavender to question wanting to re-establish a relationship with his father. “I told him about how abusive my stepfather was and he said that if he had known, he would’ve done something.”

Abuse, poor parenting, and betrayal are cited as the three major underlying factors as to why family members become estranged from one another.
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“It felt violent to not be able to talk about my life and my partner, to have that ignored — and on top of that, how could [he] say that he didn’t know these things were going on?”

This “parental indifference,” as Sharp, Thomas, and Paxman refer to it, is a common theme in the backstories of estranged children:

“Unlike maltreatment and abuse, where adult children reported being actively targeted by their parents, indifference occurred when children were ignored, overlooked, disregarded, or not believed.”

As they discuss further, it is the combination of both abuse and indifference that ultimately drive people in Lavender’s situation to seek greater distance.

“He had so many excuses as to why he couldn’t be in my life… why he wasn’t there when I needed him, and none of them were good enough.”

Despite the often harrowing reasons that lead individuals to go NC with family members, the research conducted in Dr. Blake’s paper indicate that the outcomes can be extremely beneficial. Of the 807 participants in her 2015 study, 80% agreed that estrangement had had a positive effect on their lives saying they felt “freer, more independent, and stronger.”

Of all the individuals who shared their backstories with me for this piece, none regret the decision to go NC. While most agreed that feelings of sadness are inevitable, some referenced feelings of indifference or resignation. They also emphasized that the decision to cut ties was an important exercise in exerting their own autonomy. It allowed them the room they needed to take responsibility for their emotional health, create more positive relationships, and establish boundaries that helped to repair years of trauma.

The Memento Of My Father’s Bigotry — And What Could Have Been

These are people who, for years, tried to love and support family members who stole money, invented horrendous lies for financial gain, were violent or sexually abusive, who devalued every autonomous decision their victims ever made, reduced their self-worth to a fraction of its true value or permanently traumatized them from being able to trust anyone else.

And they all agree unequivocally, that going NC was an act of necessity, not a source of shame — though public stigma and the social expectation of reconciliation often prove to be continuously re-traumatizing.

“What people found really unhelpful was being pushed in any direction — to forgive, or to reconnect,” says Dr Blake. “Rather, they found that being listened to and believed was very helpful.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Laura, who asserts that going NC with her mother was the hardest thing she’s ever done, and it’s a choice that requires a great deal of support and compassion.

“It’s important that if someone is going through that situation, you just listen. If they’re not speaking to their family, there’s a reason why — what do they need from you?”

For Lavender, the decision to be NC is an exercise in redefining the concept of family to one that is healthy and that doesn’t subscribe to standard conventions of what a family should look like. “The people I decide to hold close to me are adding something that feels healthy and good… As an adult, I can make that decision.”

Dr. Blake agrees that creating more space for different variations of family, and normalizing those variations, is key to offering better support networks for people outside of the traditional framework. “There’s so much diversity in families that you don’t see on TV and they’re no less legitimate. I’d like to see more friendship-based families, which are increasingly popular alternatives.”

And why not? Let’s just roll out the increasingly popular concept of Friendsgiving year round — if blood is thicker than water, than turkey gravy surely has blood beat.

There’s so much diversity in families that you don’t see on TV and they’re no less legitimate.
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Every now and then I find myself in a situation where I’m asked why I don’t speak about my brother. I’ve experimented with a variety of colorful diversion techniques — my favorites being: “stay in your lane” and “look over here; I’m baking a pie!” — But if the interaction gains enough traction or depth, I inevitably confess that the reason why I don’t talk about my brother is because we’re estranged.

Like Laura, I’ve lost friendships over it. I’ve lost relatives over it. But instead of mourning the family persona that never fit my reality, I’ve chosen to create room for a better one that does — where friends, colleagues and partners fill my life with the kind of love that helps me to be a better, happier person…

…Just like in Living Single which, I think we can all agree, was an infinitely better example of families as they are, not as they should be.