Falsely Accused?

 I recently posted about how my sister is an offender, and now I’m grappling with the idea that the allegations against her may have been made up.

Warning for discussion of CSA (child sexual abuse)

Years ago, my brother’s then-wife accused my sister of touching my young niece inappropriately. After hearing this story, my parents kicked my sister out of the house, and since then, she has been homeless off and on. Besides that, CPS got involved, and all my nieces and nephews had to undergo invasive questioning; the idea that this has all been for nothing is distressing.

Why do I think that maybe I was wrong about my sister being an offender? Because my brother’s wife made a second accusation, but this time, she called my brother an offender.

Granted, multiple people in families can and do abuse children. All allegations of child abuse should be taken as seriously as possible.

But it’s hard to take these allegations seriously when my brother’s ex-wife admitted that she made up the story about my brother being an offender. Their divorce has been bitterly angry and messy. My brother’s ex-wife later explained that she made the whole thing up just so she could get a restraining order.

My sister is now estranged from the rest of the family because of what she was accused of. I don’t want to lose my brother too, especially when my brother’s ex-wife admitted that she made up the charges against him.

I used to spend a lot of time in strongly feminist and social-justice oriented spaces. I’ve been taught in these spaces that we should always believe accusers, even without evidence. It’s been really hard for me to let go of this idea. But I’ve slowly been warming up to the thought that maybe I was wrong about my sister.

The idea of people making up charges as serious as child molestation is, sadly, nothing new to me as a part of the map community. Anti-maps always throw around dangerous accusations without evidence. It seems like everyone in the community has a story or two about being harshly slandered by anti-maps. I’ve personally been accused of things as serious as running a child sexual exploitation ring, based only on the fact that I’m open about being a map.

Anti-maps strongly believe that anyone who would openly admit to having an attraction to minors must be a bad person. Besides that, mapmisiac stereotypes abound in our society to the point that many exclusive teleiophiles assume that all maps must be offenders. Ideas like these are why anti-maps feel so comfortable accusing the entire community of doing terrible things.

But as my sister’s story shows, accusations like these ruin lives in concrete ways. If my sister hadn’t been accused of molesting a child, she likely wouldn’t be homeless now. It makes me sick to think that she might have been kicked out of her home for no reason.

The lesson here is clear. If you assume that someone must have done something like abused a child, but you have no evidence, do not accuse them. Do not make callout posts against them. Do not even gossip about them on social media. When you accuse someone of something they haven’t done, you not only make yourself and your side look irrational, but you potentially ruin that person’s life.