Amber Heard: Guilty As Charged?
When Being a Woman who Survived Abuse is A Crime
Amber Heard and I have a lot in common.
No, I’m not beautiful, blonde, gorgeous, or a highly-paid movie star. What I am, though, is a queer woman and a survivor. What I am is someone who understands how a woman can be targeted with social punishment for daring to live through her abuse and speak out about it to spare other women.
I know what it’s like to care more about your sisters than your own ego. I know how scary it is to write about it, talk about it, tweet about it, pretend every word is not eating you up from the inside out. I know how it feels to be afraid every single day because what if he comes back?
Amber spoke out anyway. She wrote a benign, respectable article about being a survivor of domestic abuse. She advocated for other women when and where she could. True, she was imperfect. She didn’t donate money when she said she would. Sometimes she got angry. Sometimes she fought back, or said violent things to her abuser. Still, she kept trying.
That was her first mistake.
When you are a queer woman, a survivor, someone who makes money doing something you love in a world that says women belong in the home, someone who tries to do the right thing and love her life in a world…
