“Trans Icon” Eli Erlick is a Rapist and Abuser and is trying to silence my testimony of her violence against me
PLEASE SHARE WIDELY--Circulate this so others can know and protect themselves and their communities, before she tries to get this taken down as well
I recently found the courage within myself to speak publicly about my emotionally and sexually abusive relationship with Trans Student Educational Resources co-founder and Executive Director Eli Erlick. Since then, Eli has responded primarily with silence and secondarily by spreading lies claiming my account is false and somehow transmisogynistic, hiding behind theory to justify her abuse and doing injustice to actual violent transmisogyny. I am publicly publishing this album for all to behold. This album will contain mostly screenshots of Eli's admissions of guilt to the abusive behaviors I accuse her of, as well as documented attempts she has made to bury and discredit my testimony. She has reported my original post to facebook so I am compiling any of my text commentary here so I can paste it into a medium that Eli cannot control and report. I want my voice to be heard and I want others to be protected.
Eli has exhibited the classic mentality of a rapist and abuser. Survivors come forth with their testimony against their abusers and abusers will try to silence them. Eli reported my post to facebook to protect her own reputation. Notice how I spoke out and bared my soul about topics I have never spoken about. I grew up in the most sex negative Korean household. I have never once even discussed my consensual sex life on Facebook due to a lifetime of conditioning and shame that are still hard to shake even after being immersed in communities that try to have healthy open dialogue about sex. For me to come forth and publicly identify myself as a survivor and someone who has practiced kink and polyamory and also to mention my abusive parent in my post was a huge vulnerability for me. For Eli to not even call me by my name in her post takes away my voice. People who consider me community, who would stand with me and know me, have liked her post or extended their support to her not knowing that it was about me coming forth about being raped and abused by her. I have no interest in taking away Eli’s voice in this situation, but I will use what she does say publicly to put them side by side with actual interactions from our relationship in the form of screenshots. I will add the link to the post that I have already made with the compiled screenshots
Eli is someone who is constantly seeking the spotlight and looking for opportunities to boost her reputation, as evident in the countless times she has taken the mic on public media when it would much better serve underrepresented and intersection ally marginalized parts of the Trans community. Eli Erlick’s narrative is over represented to cis people and yet Eli still steals the attention. As someone who knew her intimately I know that Eli wakes up and the first thing she does is look at her notifications and run analytics on every social media post. I admit Eli runs a well oiled machine because she is at capacity to do so.
Who am I? I have nothing on the line here and I have nothing to hide. I’m a disabled, mentally ill non-binary QTPOC who takes care of their multiply disabled partner full time. I’ve finally gotten to a place of healing where I’m at capacity to cook, clean, buy groceries, pick up our meds from the pharmacy, and spackle cracks in the wall to keep out pests in our new apartment. Almost all my energy on any given day goes to me an Knight taking care of each other’s emotional and physical needs and when we’re having a good day where we have a little extra energy we try to go outside and do something. We’re on a pretty tight budget which affects even what foods we’re able to eat as I’m too disabled and also too dedicated to taking care of my love full time to work a prestigious job that actually pays well and put my dual degree that I struggled tooth and nail literally for my life to achieve. I’m supporting us off of our combined savings until my new job starts back up in October in which I grade SAT essays primarily from the comfort of my own home, still allowing me to care for my partner full time.
I used to post on Facebook for fun but if you look at how my Facebook habits have changed in the last few years it is reflective of my mental health and capacity how little I ever post. I occasionally post a fundraiser for Trans people in need or if I’m having a not so dysphoric day I might even post a selfie. I live in LA near nobody I know but Knight’s family and I’m transitioning in anonymity for my safety. I have been completely out of the Claremont loop and queer/trans community altogether since I burnt out in Spring ‘15. When I’m at low capacity I go weeks and sometimes even months without talking to my dearest friends. For me to put my heart on the line and speak the truth about my experiences being raped and abused by Eli took tremendous courage and energy for me and is clearly outside my normal use of social media. I am clearly not doing this for attention or any sort of personal gain. My SOLE motivation is to protect members of my community from an abuser while I am too disabled to be actively in those spaces myself.
Why would I come out in the middle of nowhere and spend every ounce of energy I have to speak about trauma that continues to affect me every day to “troll”? Why would I spend that kind of energy to produce lies? To accuse me of lying and being a troll exemplifies exactly how little Eli has ever understood about me or about mental illness and disability altogether.
The biggest part of how Eli gaslit me and abused me was to condition me to feel as though me expressing my emotions EMOTIONALLY was me not being accountable, as though me completely divorcing myself from my feelings, emotions, and trauma to patiently perform endless emotional labor to break down her violent abusive behavior to her, have her respond well over text, and continue to do nothing to change her abusive behavior, was the only way I could be a valid human in her eyes. I was trained to hate myself for having feelings and feel guilty all the time, which is evident in every interaction where I tried to tell her my feelings leading up to the breakup. The anger and pain in the screenshots I posted of our interactions since the breakup are not representative of the patience I had with her for over a year and a half but rather my PTSD at its breaking point. But if Eli wants to be a classic abuser and manipulator and take my words and emotions out of context to paint me as the villain, I will just continue to speak my truth and shed more light on the situation.
I made the mistake of confronting Eli via facebook message in my pain and outrage of seeing the screenshot in which she referred to me as a troll, a TERF, and a liar to Alex Senello, and in this message I informed her that the Claremont Colleges had reached out to me to begin a Title IX report and investigation against her. It was then that Eli reported my post and had it taken down, to which I responded by blocking her, and she began to spin an elaborate web of lies, using theory once again to twist the abusive power dynamic of our relationship to paint me as the abuser and rapist, and attempt to discredit me using my mental illness to paint me as unstable. I do not even have the energy to fully go into defending myself against every single lie Eli told painting me as an abuser, which is what she hoped for. She hoped to trigger me into silence. I had a lot of trouble putting my thoughts into words yesterday because I was halfway between a panic attack and a klonopin but today I feel a little more collected with strength from those who love me and believe me and I want to offer up the new screenshots I’m about to post to give you all a better look into how our relationship dynamic actually worked: Eli as the abuser, me struggling for my survival.
Unlike Eli, the abuser and rapist, I have no interest in silencing her to protect my reputation. Her post was full of lies and I have nothing to hide in my screenshots that show her abuse.
Here is my original post I made
Below are screenshots that I took from the facebook album I made, I pasted many of them here in case Eli attempts to remove the facebook album as well, but there are so many photos in the album that I will try to add them selectively, but Here is the link to the facebook album:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154552881696435&type=1&l=65003ab9ad
Please keep in mind that this is my first time even linking anything of my real world existence to my tumblr. I am taking a huge risk for my safety in hopes of keeping others safe from Eli’s abuse.
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Screenshot taken by Alex Sennello, rightful co-founder of Trans Student Educational Resources, of the private TSER leadership group. I was a Board Member, Program Director, and Grant Writer for TSER during my year and a half+ long emotionally, sexually, and financially abusive relationship with its executive director Eli Erlick. On November 2nd I sent her a 17 page long, 12 pt Times New Roman, 1x1x1 inch margin letter detailing all the horrible acts of abuse and rape that I had the capacity to recount to Eli. Her response was to begin removing me from TSER's facebook page admins, the private leadership group, and the leadership page on TSER's official website, cutting me out of the group and burying my involvement and contributions. I was unaware until this point that Eli had actually BLOCKED me from the leadership group, in an OBVIOUS attempt to silence me and prevent me from sharing my testimony of her abusive behavior with those she works with.
Eli has responded with cowardice, silence, and lies since I made my post about her abuse a few days ago. She is hiding behind theory, wielding very REAL concepts like transmisogyny as buzzwords to silence me. Eli is the perfect example of how social justice spaces often replicate violence and abuse by using theory as a weapon. Throughout our whole relationship, Eli would use theory to "put me in my place" whenever I would try to address her abusive behavior, gaslighting me to think that because I was a trans masculine person and she was a trans woman that her abuse was justified, systemically impossible, or otherwise me just being overdramatic and crazy. This is ESPECIALLY VIOLENT to me as a mentally ill non-binary trans person of color to use a THEORETICAL power dynamic to deny very REAL power dynamics of abuse that put her in the ACTUAL position of power over me, to the point of threatening my mental health and safety. Eli is trying to claim that my testimony of how she raped and abused me is fake, exaggerated, and transmisogynist.
I urge you all to look at the evidence.
The interactions at the beginning of November are her response to my 17 page letter detailing to her all the horrifying acts of rape and abuse she had committed against me. I thought it was genuine remorse and I was genuinely removed but her attempts to silence and discredit me have made it clear that this was nothing but a manipulative farce to gain favor with me. I am disgusted.
Eli sent me a brief and seemingly heartfelt response expressing remorse for her abusive behavior, admitting guilt to what I had accused her of in my letter. Her signs of remorse were clearly nothing more than emotional manipulation given how she has chosen to respond to my recent testimony.
CW: Rape
Just a couple examples of the acts of rape and abuse committed by Eli that I detail in my graphic 17 page letter to her
A therapist Eli pays to exonerate her from guilt and accountability clearly is no accountability at all.
As my anxiety and trauma was deepened by her clear lack of action and accountability since I confronted her, I tried multiple times to reach out to Eli in as professional and civilized a manner as possible (which is more than what anyone is ever obligated to do with an abuser and rapist)
Jan 24th Eli does not respond to my very serious message. Her only response is to remove me from the admins of TSER and presumably this is when she blocked me from the leadership page.
My friend sent Eli an article on how to be accountable when you realize you are an abuser. Eli thanked her for sending her the article and proceeded to do nothing discussed in it.
I expected early on that Eli would do her typical gaslighting and emotional manipulation to make me out to be the aggressor in this situation. I was very careful in my messages, despite my pain and rage, not to say anything that Eli could twist into me being a crazy vindictive ex looking to tarnish her reputation. Reading my private messages to her it is exceedingly clear my motivation lies only with protecting my community from an abuser.
Multiple people had at this point reached out to me saying that they had had similar experiences with Eli. This number has increased significantly as time has passed.
CW: rape
These are only some of the things Eli has done to me. I still wake up from traumatic nightmares. I still have flashbacks even when I am having loving consensual sex with my partner. Eli has caused me real PTSD and I know I am not the only one.
Eli admits she is guilty of what I accuse her of. She denies none of it. She even claims she wants to move toward accountability. All of this is clearly lies given her current response.
I was more than reasonable with Eli in any of our communications, still trying to see the best in her and making the mistake of trusting her lies, which she only said to appease me so that I would not be a threat to her reputation, which she further ensured by taking away my avenues of sharing my experiences by blocking me out of TSER
Eli acknowledges how well and intimately I knew and understood her and claims to be moved by my accounts and wants to change her abusive behaviors.
I try so hard to give Eli undue credit for how she has handled me because I want to believe that there is good in her and that she might actually want to be a better person
Eli admits that distancing herself from organizing would be a good thing given her tendency to abuse others with her power
This is what Alex Sennello posted in the TSER Facebook group
Including my original post that I made exposing Eli with the goal of protecting others from having similar experiences with her
