Every day, across the United States, survivors of sexual violence walk into police stations, courts, workplaces and living rooms, hoping to be heard — and far too often, they leave retraumatized, disbelieved, or dismissed. While cultural movements like #MeToo have shifted public awareness of sexual abuse, our systems and institutions have not kept pace. Real change in how we address sexual violence remains painfully slow.
Most Americans can easily name high-profile abusers – Jeffrey Epstein, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Harvey Weinstein – yet few can name the courageous survivors who have spoken out. Survivors like Gisèle Pelicot, who continues to appear in French court to oppose the appeals of convictions for the men who raped her while she was drugged by her husband in their family home. Or survivors like Chanel Miller who took their tragedy and turned it into advocacy for other survivors. Or Janel Grant, who remains in the midst of her legal battle and continues to endure online harassment after filing a lawsuit alleging sexual assault and sex trafficking by former WWE CEO Vince McMahon here in Connecticut.
Survivors aren’t nameless and faceless people you occasionally hear about, they’re real friends, parents, siblings, or coworkers who carry the emotional, physical, and psychological scars oftentimes in silence and are almost always met with skepticism. When we fail to treat their experiences with the utmost seriousness, it sends a clear message: their pain doesn’t matter.
We must also continue to confront the cultural and institutional forces that normalize and excuse sexual violence. When survivors come forward and their voices are met with pushback, indifference and online bullying, it reinforces the power imbalance that allowed the abuse to happen in the first place. They want to know their experiences won’t be dismissed because the perpetrator is wealthy, powerful, or legally privileged. Survivors want a system that doesn’t retraumatize them through years of invasive discovery processes or countersuits that force them to relive their worst moments again and again.
When I was a child, I believed that sexual abuse was simply an inevitable consequence of being a girl – and the actions and silence of the adults around me only reinforced that belief. Later, when I joined The Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence (The Alliance), I imagined a world where sexual violence was no longer normalized, and where, as Gisèle Pelicot so powerfully said, “it is not for us to have shame – it is for them.” Nearly two decades into this work, I’ve come to understand that my story is both deeply personal and heartbreakingly universal.
At The Alliance, we provide statewide sexual assault crisis service programs dedicated to ending sexual violence and ensuring every survivor has access to the healing, justice, and support they deserve. Our mission is not only to ensure survivors are heard, but to transform the systems that meet their courage with hesitation. Every day, our advocates and attorneys work with survivors who are treated as unreliable narrators of their own experiences, scrutinized more harshly than the people who harmed them, and retraumatized by procedural delays and systemic failures.
Sexual violence thrives in silence, disbelief and complicity; it ends when we choose to listen, believe and act. Survivors here in Connecticut and beyond deserve better. They deserve laws, courtrooms, workplaces, and communities that encourage truth-telling, ensure accountability, and center their dignity and safety.
Beth Hamilton is executive director of the the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence (The Alliance).
