sexual assault awareness month
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'This Movement Is a Place for You': Fatima Goss Graves on Creating Space for Black Survivors With We, As Ourselves
As Black History Month segued into Women’s History Month this year, a new platform emerged, centered solely on the vulnerable intersection of those two identities: We, As Ourselves was launched to center Black female and femme survivors of sexual violence and compel a culture in which they can be heard and supported. As explained in…
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The Voices Missing From #MeToo: Experiencing Sexual Assault as Butch
He was my dude, my nigga, my friend. The details of that night are mine to keep, a privacy I allow myself, even as I often openly share my childhood sexual trauma. This particular violation—rape—came at a crossroads in my life. I was figuring out two things: blackness and butchness, and trying hard to do…
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Survivor’s Remorse: On Junot Díaz and the Collateral Damage of Trauma
I began this week in tears. Early Monday morning, hot, torrential tears were flowing as if I were in the midst of my last heartbreak—or the one before that, or the one before that. I was reading Junot Díaz’s searingly confessional essay in the New Yorker about confronting and coping with his childhood rape. Like…
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Sexual Assault Awareness Month: Why We Must Focus on Black Girls and Child Sexual Abuse
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Every year during this time, there are campaigns across the country that highlight the dangers of acquaintance or “date” rape. There are silent marches and “Take back the night” events on college campuses around the country, and generally a heightened focus on the epidemic of sexual violence among adult…