Like, sound bad as this might, "believe all victims" does not (and shouldn't ever) mean "this person who's just made [x allegation] against a person HAS to be telling the truth". It almost seems like one of those myths we all get taught as kids and then later find out to not be true. In an ideal, world, yes, we would be able to trust the word of victims who come forward about their stories with complete faith in their truth. But the reality of the situation is that it's far more complex than that.
With increasing regularity over the years, we've seen allegations about creators online, especially in progressive spaces, surface. With increasing regularity, we find ourselves, after an exhausting saga of condemning a supposedly guilty party and harassing them to hearts' content, being disproven by testimonial and evidence by the person we thought was an irredeemable horrible excuse for a human being. And every single time, I see people on the Internet go "how does this keep happening! how could we let this go on?"
We let this go on because a lapse in critical thinking has occurred. People allow those who have something to say so much benefit of the doubt that in many cases, you need not have evidence of anything actually happening. A word is enough. You're expected to just trust, and anything varying that is "apologism" of whatever the accusations pertain to. This is a bad thing . I cannot stress that enough. And it's something that disproportionately affects some of the most marginalised people in online spaces, trans women and people of colour.
A common refrain when this gets brought up is "but what motive would a victim have to lie?!". This is a good question. Here's some answers I've sourced from situations I've seen:
"Victim" believed that the accused persons ships were gross, and that this obviously meant they COULD have been a creep, so made up a story where they were to deplatform them
"Victim" was mad that the accused stopped texting back
"Victim" was trying to cover for her own abuse perpetrated against the accused
It's also important to remember that reactionaries LOVE to frame their opposition as pedophiles, groomers, abusers. This goes for reactionaries all along the political spectrum, too, not just conservatives. Conservatives, notably, are also very capable of disguising themselves as leftists and adopting the language of progressivism to make these claims and they're absolutely not above it, especially not when it comes to attempting to prove their points that poc and trans creators online are predators.
But it isn't just about outright fabrication. So often in online spaces, someone goes public with an uncomfortable situation that happened to them, and suddenly, they're at the helm of a witch hunt against their attacker. To be taken seriously, some people may exaggerate their stories. Some people might misremember details, or even just have a different experience of a situation to the accused.
I don't say this to invalidate victims. In fact, the exact opposite. I'm a victim of online grooming and sexual assault. I made this post to start some sort of conversation, at least. We don't do victims a service by going to war against their alleged abuser the second they go public. We don't do victims a service by believing bad faith claims founded on provably falsified or misconstrued evidence defended with the refrain of "believing victims". In an age where anyone can say ANYTHING online, we are not doing our due diligence by simply unquestioningly holding up all of these victims who come forward as the sole truth and authority on a situation that may have happened. In an online landscape like the one we currently inhabit, we cannot afford to do this. How many transfem content creators need to be wrongfully painted as groomers and pedophiles before later being cleared for you all to realise that this rhetoric is dangerous?
The important thing to remember is empathy. Listen to what both sides have to say. Offer the same benefit of the doubt to any accused as you would to any victim. Reactionary thought will kill your brain. Don't let it creep in and corrupt your sense of justice.
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