Move over, minorities claiming victim status, men disguised as women, and illegal aliens: there's a new virtue class in town! It's called "alleged survivors of sexual assault."  Any woman can be a member, simply by her own say-so.  The group has five constituent parts:

1. Actual survivors of sexual assault or rape.  There is some sexual assault and rape in America, as there is in any country.  But members of this subgroup, because of the trauma and possible embarrassment involved, don't usually go public with it to the Washington Post or the New Yorker.  Quite often, though not always, they report such incidents to the police.  More often than not, they at least contemporaneously tell other people about the incident at the time it occurred.

2. Mentally ill women who delude themselves into thinking they have been sexually assaulted.  Some women, like some men, are mentally ill.  They are deluded, or they have some other kind of trauma in their lives, and they convince themselves, falsely, that they have been sexually assaulted.  It may seem a stretch for a sane person to think someone can create false memories, but if people can confuse themselves into thinking they are a different sex, than mentally fabricating an incident from years past is child's play.  Christine Ford was not asked a single question about any psychiatric counseling, diagnoses, or medication she was on the receiving end of.

3. Politically motivated women.  Some women who are opposed to conservatives and Republicans claim they are "survivors" simply to gather attention to themselves as they try to destroy their political enemies.  The woman who trapped Senator Jeff Flake in the elevator and yelled at him claimed she was a "survivor," without any evidence to back it up.  By the way, Christine Ford is not only a Democrat, but an activist who has donated to liberal causes.  She wasn't asked a single question about it.

4. Women who are subject to boorish behavior.  Women are sometimes subjected to boorish behavior by men.  For example, men may expose themselves, which is wholly inappropriate, but is not rape, yet it is called "sexual assault" in the ever widening definition of this crime.  If Brett Kavanaugh did expose himself to Deborah Ramirez (which I doubt), that would not be sexual assault.

5. Women who consent to sexual activity and change their minds afterward.  This is a big category.  Women get excited in the heat of the moment but after the fact regret getting physical with a man.  They then redefine sex as physical assault.  That's the problem with rape that isn't accompanied by signs of physical injury – to an outside investigator, it looks just like sex.  Waiting 30 years to mention it to somebody, without any evidence, doesn't lend credence to such a claim.

The man-bashing harpy Senator Mazie Hirono says women who are "survivors" must be "believed."  That is what this is all about.  Anyone can claim membership in this group, without any evidence, and once self-declared membership has been announced, such people acquire victim status and the power to demand that everything they say be accepted as truth.  Those accused are deemed guilty with no chance to prove their innocence, if such a thing could even be proved.

But like the boy who cried wolf, unsubstantiated or even contradictory allegations of sexual assault cast doubt on all people who claim they are "survivors," whether their claim was valid or not.  That's why the woman who trapped Jeff Flake claiming to be a "survivor" is about a credible a rape victim as Rachel Dolezal is as a chapter head of the NAACP.

Ed Straker is the senior editor of Newsmachete.com.