Going beyond ‘Me Too’ stories
As a clinical law professor and a domestic violence advocate, I have counseled many survivors who have experienced everything from a sexually hostile workplace environment to brutal rape.
With my own college experience with rape in the late 1970s, like so many women, I did not report it. I did not even tell friends or family about it at the time because I was afraid. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I felt isolated, and I wasn’t aware of any services that might be available. It has taken me years to work out how the trauma has affected me. But this isn’t just my story; this is the story of the 1 in 4 women and girls and the 1 in 20 men and boys in New Mexico who have been raped or victimized by uncompleted rape.
It is the story of Latina domestic workers in Albuquerque who are sexually harassed and even raped at work, but are afraid to disclose their victimization because of their legal status. It is the story of a young woman who told me that she was raped while enlisted in the military and when she reported it, her senior officers (some of them women) told her, what did she expect — after all, she is so pretty. It is the story of an incest survivor who discovered that her father had been sexually abused as a child. It is the story of a transgender woman who told me she does not know a transgender individual who has not been raped or sexually assaulted.
I do believe that individuals today may have more services available to them than I did, and indeed they may be empowered and encouraged to speak out against harassment, assault and rape, but it is still happening at staggeringly high rates — especially to young, vulnerable women, children, LGBTQI individuals and disabled individuals. Things have to change. We have to do better than simply provide services. We need to stop the behavior entirely. And we need to change the way our government responds to abuse and discrimination, and offer solutions that are worthy of those brave survivors who are outing themselves to make progress on this issue.
I’ve seen what bad policy can do to people, and my own experiences drive me to change it. After this president was
selected by the Electoral College, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents started showing up at the courthouses, which caused great fear among immigrants who were victimized. They were afraid of getting the restraining orders they needed or even testifying at the criminal trials of their abusers. I organized domestic violence and sexual assault agencies to ask the New Mexico Supreme Court to stop permitting ICE agents to detain individuals at the courthouse because it deprived immigrants of access to our justice system, which further victimized them. I knew that so much of the work we had done over decades was at risk. Our country was going backward under this administration. I could not and will not let that happen, so I stepped up to run for Congress.
I believe that the power of our stories should take us beyond just
a national conversation on sexual assault and harassment, and will us toward proactive solutions that transform our culture. The costs of trauma are too steep to ignore. These costs not only affect the physical and social well-being of victims, but also has a negative effect on their economic potential. As such, efforts to resolve this pervasive problem should be on the scale of our federally funded anti-smoking campaigns, which are coordinated and centralized and give survivors a seat at the table. Only then can we truly begin to heal as survivors and transform our country.
Antoinette Sedillo Lopez spent 27 years as a clinical law professor at The University of New Mexico School of Law, and most recently was the executive director of Enlace Comunitario. She is a Democratic candidate for Congress in New Mexico’s 1st District.