Assault survivor speaks out
What you are about to read is the personal account of a young woman who was sexually assaulted in her sleep by Jeff Wirth, founder of veganThis, which later became @becausewemust Because We Must. After the assault, when this woman would not date him, Jeff abused his place of prominence in the animal rights movement to intimidate her and force her out. She is finally speaking out, hoping that he will accept responsibility for what has happened, get some help, and change for the better--all so that no one else will go through something like this in the future.
In the summer of 2007, Jeff came to visit me at my family’s home. One night while he was there, I woke up to find his hands in my underwear, rubbing and fingering me. I said "what are you doing?!?!" and he stopped. If I remember correctly, I had my back to him. It can't be consent if I wasn't even awake to consent.
After I told him to stop, he stopped. I went back to sleep and tried to act like it never happened. I never brought it up to him even. I didn’t tell anyone, because I was embarrassed. I didn't want my family or anyone else to know. I'm the type of person who holds everything in and tries to deal with it on my own, so that's what I did. My family would not be supportive of me in anyway and it would make me feel worse. That’s why I am only speaking anonymously—I don't want my family or a lot of people to know. I don't want to be bombarded with this for the rest of my life, or have someone's friends sending me e-mails forever or harassing me. He threatened me before, suggesting that he knows enough people from his work in the animal rights movement that he could have people beat me up, because we had a falling out. I don’t want to deal with that or any other kind of drama from this.
This is also why I haven’t gone to the police. I don’t want my family to be involved or know. Also, the police won't do anything or help out the situation in anyway. The people who are closest to me have known for a long time. If anyone ever asks me about Jeff in person, I tell them the truth. However, this is the first and last time I will speak out on this publicly. I honestly would love to never have to have another conversation about these things again in my life, which is another reason for keeping it to myself and my partner.
I'd be happy if this whole thing would end and I never had to hear about it again and Jeff would stop targeting other people. I don’t keep in contact with Jeff, but I have seen him continually pointing fingers at other people. He acts like he’s all about women’s rights but then he has always degraded me for being open about my sexuality. Maybe it is a way to ignore choices he has made in the past, because in his mind he is doing the right thing? I don’t know. However, I do not want to see him try to ruin people's lives and any possible relationships, friendships, etc., that they might have.
I'm not doing this to get back at him or spite him or ruin his life. It's possible that he doesn't even realize the things that he has done or the issues that he may have. Maybe he won’t understand, unless this is said and someone tries to help him.
And once again I'm going to stress that I don't want random people trying to talk to me. I don't want to get in the middle of a huge argument. I don't want to be in the spotlight. I don't want the entire world to know what happened to me. I don’t want anyone who knows who I am mentioning my name in connection with this. I just want this shit to stop and for Jeff to accept that what he did was wrong and change the way he acts for the future.
Jeff currently resides in Portland, Oregon (USA).
