In a world that seems to challenge women on all sides, in many cases by the men charged with protecting us, an unexpected bright light came to let us know all hope isn’t lost.
Tro’Juan Henderson, a 28-year-old Lyft driver in Texas, is a one-man shield protecting all the women he encounters with a mentality that defies rape culture head on.
According to Henderson, in his now viral Twitter video, during a shift in Dallas he refused to pick up a woman because she was “intoxicated/unconscious” and traveling alone. He says that he asked her two friends who helped the young lady to his car if they would travel with her, and even offered them cheaper rides. But when they declined (some friends, smh), he canceled the ride. Why? Well unlike NYC cab drivers, Henderson had a very good reason – for the woman’s safety.
“Even though I won’t rape or sexually assault this lady…as a friend, that puts your friend in a possibility of great danger,” he says in the video.
Lady request Lyft and attempts to put her friend who is intoxicated/unconscious in my vehicle by herself. #SexualAssaultAwareness. #Safety pic.twitter.com/vzOqdalZpX
— Tro’juan Henderson (@Trojuan_) April 13, 2017
We’ve all been there, on one side of the fence or the other. We’ve all either been the friend that had to help that friend who had one two many margaritas get home. And if you say you’ve never been the aforementioned friend at least once, especially during college, you’re getting a side-eye right now. Even though neither scenario is fun, many women have been sexually assaulted while under the influence because of so-called friends who pushed their drunk friend in a cab to avoid babysitting, and cab drivers who saw a passenger’s drunken state as a sick opportunity. Henderson’s ability to see the danger the situation he was in presented is hands down a commendable one, and one that more men, and women, need to be conscious of.
Henderson, who told Elite Daily he was motivated to become an advocate for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors after working with the National Domestic Violence Hotline in Austin (NDVH), recalls the moment he went from feeling he “always knew rape was wrong,” to feeling he needed to do and say more.
“I remember going to a workshop and hearing a guy who, after a woman was raped, said, ‘Aye man, boys will be boys.’ Like basically that because we’re men, this is in our nature and we can’t control ourselves. It was a shock. I knew that was wrong. From that point on, I knew I had to be more vocal. Men have to hold themselves more accountable.”
Well said young man, well said.
