#gender identity doesnt grant automatic innocence
I realize I may lose some mutuals over this, but it needs to be said. The criticism of the Depp v Heard trial is just as biased and oversimplified as the clickbait tiktoks and youtube videos.
If all you saw of the trial were those videos that made light of a serious situation, then I understand your misconception, however there was and is legitimate coverage by actual trial attorneys who provided unbiased commentary, as well as education.
Heard lost the trial because her evidence was not good. Her testimony kept changing. Her witnesses were refuted by actual, empirical evidence. The forensic psychologists on her team did not meet with Depp, while Depp’s psychologists met with her. This is on top of a myriad of other points in Depp’s favor and/or Heard’s lack of credibility, as well as her history of DV and Depp’s refuted ones by former partners.
He’s not a saint, but he was abused; Heard is on record (as testimony and in a recording between herself and Depp) as acknowledging she struck him, then to tell him that he will not be believed
I was under the same biases at the beginning, too, but a lot of those biases came from the internalized misogynistic* perspective that men cannot be victims of women. Women can be abusers, too; we have to think that more than we just say it and think we mean it.
If you’d like some recommendations on YouTube, see NatalieLawyerChick,EmilyDBaker, and AttorneyTom. These are practicing attorneys and/or legal professionals (Emily was a criminal district attorney, but stepped away and is now a legal consultant/commentator).
Believe who you want, but consider your reasons for doing so. Or don’t.
*yes, misogynistic, I did not mistype. The assumption that women are too weak or too pure to be violent is rooted in sexism, and the assumption that a man cannot be abused by a woman comes also from the perspective that to be abused is to be female, to be female is to be weak, to be weak is subhuman, and men are the only ones with “True Humanity.”
