a lot of abusers make a point to set themselves against anarchafeminists and to portray anarchafeminists as the monstrous Other, because they accurately diagnose anarchafeminism as a specific challenge to the structures of power they wish to keep unquestioned and invisible. this is where the ridiculous anti-kylr moral panic(s) came from (because it absolutely WAS 100% moral panic. scaremongering and handwringing and pitchfork mobs whipping themselves up to hunt down witches) and it's where the "concerns" of certain prominent anarchist cis men stem from.

but there is another type of abuser, who *in my personal experience* tends to be gender-marginaized themselves (but this is of course not exclusively true), and to rely on somewhat more subtle forms of gendered power. for example, the cis woman abuser of trans women. this is the type of abuser that is statistically more likely to also be a survivor (although we must as always strictly remember that there is no CAUSAL relationship between these two facts. they are not abusers *because* of their own experiences with abuse, but because they, like all abusers, have learned who it is they are allowed to exercise power over, how they are allowed to exercise it, and what mechanisms of power are available to them.)

this type of abuser is likely to be a Wounded Bird type, (see: boytits excellent bluesky thread on the subject), to place their victims into a state of perpetual emotional debt and obligation to them, to weaponize threats of suicide or otherwise to make their victims responsible for their own mental health, or to appeal to their status as gender marginalized or as a survivor to obfuscate their interest in power. e.g., "well i'm a survivor too--" (here framing survivorhood as a type of identity category or class rather than a type of relation to another person) "--so i have no incentive to side with an abuser over their victim!!" while doing extremely explicit 101 divorce-court level abuse apologia. i can't be an abuse apologist, i'm a survivor! i can't be an abuse apologist, i'm a woman! i can't be an abuse apologist, i'm a flawless feminist!

as you can tell by now, this tendency to disguise their own pursuit of power behind their marginalization is by definition a type of affinity fraud. as such, it means that when this type of abuser sees anarchafeminists, they MAY identify that subculture as a natural enemy as many other abusers do... but they may also or instead identify it as a TARGET. a pool of potential marks. it's a subculture with a set of norms and practices, and no set of norms and practices is totally immune to being twisted into authority by a committed enough pursuer of power. they identify themselves as "one of you, i've been burned by anti-survivor moral panics just like you, i've been burned by anti-feminism and 'restorative justice' just like you, i've been disbelieved, discarded, etc"--and all these things may very well be true. but instead of developing a kind of empathetic solidarity for others in their position, they have identified others in this position vulnerable to coercion, and identified their own status as marginalized as a source of epistemic authority. they may learn the vocabulary of feminist critique--such as "epistemic authority" even--directly from their own victims even as they churn that vocabulary over, twist it, warp it, and weaponize it against their victims' ability to tell what's true.

they take advantage of a very very vulnerable type of trust and solidarity that survivors find on the rare, precious occasions when they recognize each other in the crowd. after a lifetime of being villainized, disbelieved, discarded, subjected to the horrors of "restorative justice" etc, a survivor finally finds spaces of solidarity and trust, places where people will hold their hands and say "me too," (yes i'm using that specific phrase on purpose), where they can freely feel all the anger they have accumulated in a lifetime of rage and no one will scold or moralize or fearmonger about the inherent evil of being too angry at your oppressors. "and i'm just like you, so it would be a horrible, unspeakable betrayal for you to even dream of accusing *me.* after all, we both agree that abusers are fair game... so are you going to come after ME now? is that... a threat?"

i don't really have a solution for this other than to simply be unworkably distrustful of everyone and abandon even the meager networks of solidarity we have because literally no one can be trusted, not even the people who learn the vocabulary we built to protect ourselves. this was supposed to be some short thoughts and turned into a meandering quasi-essay. but like. i'm so frustrated and tired and disillusioned and sick to fucking death of cruelty and insincerity and lies. i'm sick of having my sincerity taken advantage of, sick of feeling like it's my fault my friends get abused because i was the one to have the bright idea of building a little space just for us, a space where the implicit trust and solidarity and support between us functionally invites opportunists looking for someone pre-traumatized enough to feel like they have no right to boundaries, especially with "a fellow survivor" in a "support space."