Grace and I both knew pushing for accountability and further investigation at Menlo was going to come at a cost. We knew it would be slow, difficult, painful, and that we’d meet with resistance. @graceelavery
We’ve spoken to school administrators, the police, current and former parishioners, parents, investigators, lawyers, and church staff. We’ve gone public when other avenues failed.
Almost eight months after our first report in November, and still no one has interviewed the children who were in my brother’s care over the years.
We’ve also met with a lot of support, and we’re both so grateful for it. We have never had to do this by ourselves. Trusted friends helped us draft emails, review process, seek legal and therapeutic counsel, clarify our goals, and looked after us when we needed it.
In the last week, while my father has remained silent about his cover-up, three other relatives have attacked Grace and me in public. My sister claimed to be broken-hearted over our “exaggerations,” but declined to clarify what she meant when asked for more detail.
My uncle’s husband said we must be doing this for money. This one’s pretty straightforward: We haven’t made any money off this.
I’m not sure how we would go about making money from asking for an investigation into my brother’s work with children at a church we do not attend, in a state where we do not live. Of all the ways a person can make money, this has got to be pretty far down on the list.
And, of course, over and over, the same claim: This can’t really be Danny (often, “This can’t really be Mallory,” because they don’t believe I’m really Danny, either).
This must be Grace’s fault – she must have brainwashed me somehow, poisoned me against my loving family, dragged me out of a happy home and whispered venom into my ear until I was programmed to attack.
It’s an old transmisogynist chestnut: Trans women are all-powerful malicious actors hell-bent on the destruction of the nuclear family, and trans men are confused, idiotic dupes in their thrall.
In this scenario, I am a permanent child, forever frozen into a petulant adolescence, capable only of sensible filial piety or irrational lashing-out.
And Grace, despite working tirelessly to help safeguard children, supporting and comforting and working with me both in public and in private, is forever suspicious, alien, duplicitous, untrustworthy, dangerous, all by virtue of her transition.
It makes a mockery of everything I’m proud of in Grace: Her moral clarity, her energy and persistence, her attention to detail, her dedication to bearing me up when I’m exhausted and demoralized and heartbroken over the loss of my entire family, her intelligence...
her commitment to safeguarding and collective decision-making, are all leveraged against her, as evidence that she is acting for me rather than with me and alongside me. I am so proud of Grace, and take great delight in her strengths.
I know part of the reason why, a full week after we first made the details public, most of the Christian press has not yet touched the story is because we are both transgender, and therefore not credible.
This was Menlo Church’s early strategy in dismissing our concerns and excusing my father’s attempt to stop my initial report.
I'd ask those Christians to remember John 16:13: “However, when the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
It’s been seven days now since I made the decision to name the volunteer as my brother. Grace supported me in this decision; I made it.
I did not need Grace to tell me what was wrong when my father said “I don’t know…I’m not sure” when I asked him if my brother still took children on overnight trips without supervision. I knew it was wrong. I knew it had to stop.
I knew it wasn't good enough to say, "Well, Johnny says nothing happened -- investigation over!" I knew exactly what kind of risk those children were being exposed to, because my parents exposed me for years to a very similar risk as a child.
I suffered many overnight visits where I was not safe, where I knew I was not safe, and I knew that the adults in my life would not believe me if I told them I was not safe. That contact harmed me deeply, and it took me years to recognize the scope and extent of that harm.
Part of the harm came from the cheerful silence of the responsible adults, after I asked for help and nothing changed. I was not credible then because I was a child; I am not credible now because my wife and I are trans.
We stand nothing to gain here, except the hope of breaking a cycle where the feelings and reputations of powerful men and self-loathing pedophiles are more important than safety and accountability.
and while we are not the victims here, it's come at a very high cost. We've been degraded, ignored, smeared, dismissed, and it has hurt so badly to be torn apart by my own family in public like this. I don't have words for how much it has hurt.
