There’s a strange fact which you may not know about the UK. You live in the world’s only country that tells the world that no person (man or woman) can ever be raped by a woman. 

Imagine telling a lesbian that they don’t count because their assaulter wasn’t a man? We live in a time where it is in vogue to put on a rainbow in June but gay or lesbian survivors of same-sex assault aren’t even recorded. Is this not the peak of homophobia? But this is our law.

Here’s another funny fact. We’re the world’s only jurisdiction that records sexual violence against men as a crime against women and girls. The state telling men who are sexually assaulted that they are actually women is one of the worst and most demeaning insults male survivors can endure. I know, because I am one. It implies that my manhood is gone because I was victimised. Alas, neither Labour or the Conservatives seem to think this is a big problem. 

The situation for male survivors especially is worsening. Today a little under half of crisis centres will turn men away from their door. But in 2025, the government is cutting the country’s only support line for male survivors. The cost of maintaining this line is not much, a mere £250,000 pa.

Empathy is a value that our party puts first. I am a survivor of sexual violence. I live in a world that is hostile to my existence.

On the one hand there are the usual suspects of far right grifters (i.e. the Brothers Tate) who say a real man can never be a victim. 

But on the other hand, there is the no less toxic view a real victim can never be a man. Tackling the first statement without the second will solve nothing. Both suffer from the sickness that my existence as survivor depends on a third-party’s assent. 

The Lib Dems ability to care is what separates us from the big two parties, which have lost contact with care as an idea itself. Kemi Badenoch even said the Lib Dems as the sort of ‘sock and sandal wearers that fixes the church roof.’ The Tories clearly have contempt for care in the community. 

This year, the drama Adolescence took the UK by storm. A drama centres around misogynistic violence from a teenage boy. The prime minister is demanding anti-misogyny classes for boys in response and a meeting with the showrunners. Perhaps a good start, but again only a start. Last year a drama about male-on-male sexual violence (Baby Reindeer) was the cause celebre of the season – it is yet to receive government policy announcements.

This coupled with the closure of our only support line proves Labour’s belief in the second lie, a real victim can never be a man. This attitude is especially egregious for other victims of same-sex violence.

Prisoners of the female estate are subject also to sexual violence by other females. By focussing on male-on-female violence, the female working-class population that disproportionately goes to prison is being swept under the rug. For a party which claims they are the ‘labour movement’ Labour has a very classist mind-set.  

All survivors of sexual violence have the right to have their story told. There is so much I want the world to know about the torment of being survivor. The PTSD attacks, the neurological problems caused by trauma, the fact I am 30 years old and have never had a partner, patronising help (‘you chose your career over relationships, good for you!’) and so on.

We have enough problems. A mountain of lies encouraged by my government has added to them.  Until something starts to change. My life is extremely uncomfortable. The generations to come with the same issue don’t have to tread the blighted path I have trod. But that won’t happen until something changes at the top.

Perhaps the largest issue is representation and casual erasure. Too often in the media the word survivor and woman are used interchangeably. Sexual crimes in the LGBT community are ignored. There are few individuals who can even be recognised as a face of survivors for men or the LGBT community. The government needs to change its recording method so sexual crimes against men are recorded as such – not crimes against women and girls.

Its clear this won’t happen overnight. Only sustained pressure from within Westminster and outside it will achieve anything close to justice. 

* John Jewers is a former councillor in the market town of Woodbridge. I have a master's in philosophy and public affairs, and a former researcher for the National Farm Research Unit. I am currently a cameraman and sound recordist based in East London.