If you ever choose to come forward after becoming a victim of sexual assault, first make sure you’re the right kind of victim.

Because when it comes to violence against women, it was never about believing them — just about believing the ones whose trauma serves the proper agenda.

Last week, while Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was withdrawing from the race following a rape allegation, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls was reaching out to an Israeli woman who was sexually assaulted while in captivity in Gaza.

Great news, right?

Then why did it take months of accusations of sexual assault (and one Nazi tattoo) for Platner to step down?

And why, despite reams of first-hand testimony regarding sexual violence against Israeli women and girls on Oct. 7, did the UN representative in charge of — checks notes — violence against women and girls deny these horrors until a former hostage called her out publicly for her silence?

In Platner’s case, the accuser had to have the right politics to be believed.

But if the bar is high for conservative women, wait till you hear what Jewish women have to clear.

UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, whose job commands her to pursue the “elimination of violence against women,” has repeatedly denied multiple reports from Israeli women of what they experienced at the hands of Hamas terrorists and regular Gazans on and after Oct. 7.

She doubled down on her dismissals even after the United Nations itself caved in and acknowledged those crimes.

It took a public shaming, in the form of a viral video, for Alsalem to agree to meet face to face with an Oct. 7 victim.

Last month, when former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky testified in Geneva about the sexual assault she experienced, she asked the UN rapporteur to look her in the eye as she recounted her horrors.

Alsalem refused in the moment — but the backlash that followed this young woman’s plea left Alsalem no choice but to finally meet her gaze.

Last week, she used a post on X to tell the world that she and Gritzewsky were “in contact trying to identify a convenient time to meet.”

Why did this reluctant acknowledgment of the obvious take almost three years? 

And why must the burden of proof depend on the victim’s identity — not to mention that of the perpetrator?

For years, international organizations like the United Nations have been using their important mandates as a tool to promote a political agenda.

Captured by progressive ideologies, they spend their days calling out “mansplaining” and “manspreading” — while actively denying violent crimes committed by those they deem too oppressed to know better, like illegal immigrants, convicted criminals and Hamas terrorists.

Just last month Alsalem’s shop chose to publish a report about violence against mothers, claiming in its pages that in Iran “achievements in reducing maternal mortality and the gains in girls’ education are likely to be reversed” due to the “aggression” of Israel and the United States.

Notably missing from the report was any mention of Israeli mother Shiri Bibas, who was kidnapped from her home on Oct. 7 with her 4-year-old and 9-month-old sons Ariel and Kfir — and later murdered.

That absurd contrast sends a clear message: To the United Nations, some mothers are more equal than others.

Sexual assault is a serious allegation that should never be treated lightly.

But when an advocate authorizes reports imagining the potential impacts of war while refusing to grapple with a young woman’s personal story waking up half-naked in Gaza, it’s hard not to think that the mission was never about women, nor was it about the truth — it was about promoting a political agenda.

Gritzewsky told The Post that the acknowledgment from Alsalem is “better late than never.”

She hopes the rapporteur will come to their meeting “with an open heart, ready to listen and willing to change her mind and her reports.”

“History is what it is — we endured sexual assaults. I, other hostages, and many others,” she said. “Unfortunately, nothing will change that.”

The brave victims who continue to tell their stories, and the social media sunlight illuminating the rot in our institutions, are equally necessary.

We can and should demand better for women and men who experience sexual violence.

And as they share the truth about what happened to them, we must force political operatives and captured ideologues to look them in the eye.

Yael Bar tur is the author of “Everyone on the Internet Hates You” on Substack. X: @yaelbt.