There is a reason people cling so tightly to labels when harm is exposed. Often, it is not confusion. It is fear.Fear of admitting they were mis
There is a reason people cling so tightly to labels when harm is exposed.
Often, it is not confusion.
It is fear.
Fear of admitting they were misled.
Fear of realizing they trusted a mask.
Fear of sitting with the truth that appearances protected someone who caused harm.
There is also a very real historical concern at play.
Many people worry that accurately naming an offender’s behavior or orientation will be misused to fuel prejudice or hatred. That fear did not come from nowhere. It is rooted in a long and painful history where entire communities were falsely blamed for the actions of individuals.
That history deserves acknowledgment.
And still, something vital has gone wrong in how we respond.
When fear of misuse leads to erasure of facts, Survivors are the ones who pay the price.
When we refuse to call behavior what it is, we lose our ability to see patterns clearly.
We lose language.
We lose accuracy.
We lose trust in our own perception.
A Survivor who knows the offender had relationships with men is not imagining things.
A Survivor who witnessed double lives is not confused.
Yet when the world insists on preserving a public label that contradicts lived reality, the message becomes devastatingly clear: your eyes don’t matter. Your knowing doesn’t count.
Holding the Mask in Place
People defend labels when they are afraid to admit they trusted a mask.
For many bystanders, holding onto the label becomes a kind of comfort object. A way to avoid the deeper reckoning. If the mask stays intact, then the story does not need to change. If the mask stays intact, no one has to admit they were fooled.
But Survivors live with the cost of that avoidance.
When an offender brands himself as “straight” to maintain access, credibility, or power, and the world reinforces that brand despite his actions, the harm does not stop at the original violation. It continues in the silencing. It continues in the gaslighting. It continues in the quiet rewriting of reality.
Prioritizing identity over actions does not protect anyone.
It protects the mask.
Protecting an identity at the expense of truth does not prevent harm; it extends it.
Truth does not need a long explanation.
It does not need contortions.
It does not need to be softened into confusion.
When the world insists on a label that contradicts lived reality, it teaches Survivors to doubt their own eyes.
When we refuse to speak plainly, we allow the fox to remain in the hen house, shielded by a badge that no longer reflects reality. We know that with harms like racism (though people keep forgetting or pretending to). We are learning that with harms like sexual violence and Survivors and victims are the teachers.
This is not about hate.
It is about honesty.
It is about care.
Truth, like medicine, can be difficult to swallow at first. But it heals what denial cannot. It restores language to Survivors. It brings the body and the story back into alignment. It makes prevention possible.
And most importantly, it says to those who were harmed:
We see what you saw.
We trust what you know.
Your truth matters.
That is love.