00:00You don't know me, but you've been inside me,
00:03and that's why we're here today.
00:05♪♪
00:10♪♪
00:15♪♪
00:19Peeling off and discarding my underwear like a candy wrapper
00:22to insert your finger into my body is where you went wrong.
00:26♪♪
00:31♪♪
00:35I went to a fraternity party at Stanford University.
00:40I accompanied my younger sister, who was in college.
00:44I had already graduated, and so I thought this will be fun.
00:47I remember we went out to the patio.
00:50There was this, like, really cheap beer,
00:53and that's the last memory that I have.
00:55♪♪
00:59I wake up in a very bright room,
01:03and there's dried blood on the back of my hands,
01:06and the police officer comes over and says,
01:08we have reason to believe you've been sexually assaulted.
01:12And I was like, okay, you definitely have the wrong person.
01:15I'd like to go to the bathroom.
01:17So I go to the bathroom, and that's when I realize
01:20that my head is full of pine needles
01:24and my underwear is missing.
01:26♪♪
01:32There's this feeling when something is wrong,
01:35you don't want to ask because you don't really want to know.
01:39And you trust that if something is truly wrong,
01:41they'll tell you.
01:43But 10 days pass, and I'm at work one morning,
01:46and I'm looking at the news,
01:48and I see this portrait of this guy
01:52smiling with a suit and a tie.
01:57And it says that he was found on top
02:00of a half-naked, unconscious woman behind a dumpster,
02:07and that two Swedish graduate students were biking by,
02:11saw what was happening, confronted him.
02:15He took off running, and they chased him down,
02:20tackled him, sat on him, and refused to move
02:24until the police were there and I was taken to the hospital.
02:28Young athlete at a prestigious university.
02:30Three-time All-American high school swimmer
02:32facing charges of raping an intoxicated, unconscious woman.
02:36As she lay on the ground intoxicated and unconscious.
02:39For a while, my only identifier
02:43was unconscious, intoxicated woman.
02:46They described my attacker as an All-American athlete.
02:50They got quotes from his previous high school swimming coach
02:54that said he was wonderful.
03:04During my trial, I was asked if I partied in college.
03:08I was asked about my relationship.
03:11I was asked how many times I had blacked out.
03:15And I remember thinking that they were trying to get me
03:18to say, yes, I have had a lot to drink in the past,
03:22and then they would go, aha,
03:25when really you could ask me a thousand questions
03:28about my history and not a single experience
03:32in my past would justify his actions that evening.
03:36I also know that had I never gone out
03:39and stayed at home just to read,
03:42then he would have found someone else.
03:49I wasn't sleeping.
03:51I couldn't look at my body.
03:54I would always be crying.
03:55I'd have to refrigerate metal spoons
03:59so I could hold them against my eyes
04:01so that they would be less puffy
04:03before work in the morning.
04:04In court, I noticed how
04:08he was so naturally perceived as someone
04:14who belonged to family, belonged to a team,
04:18and that every day we were in court,
04:20it was a day away from this really colorful and rich life.
04:25And so the objective became how do we return him
04:28to that life as quickly as possible?
04:31Whereas I was someone who was not extracted from a life,
04:35but who simply appeared that evening
04:39and who was not much more than a body.
04:43I was an object.
04:45They looked at pictures of my naked body
04:48photographed at the hospital
04:50and talked about it objectively
04:53even while I was in the room.
04:56And so I had to fight to humanize myself.
05:01Your damage was concrete,
05:16stripped of titles, degrees, enrollment.
05:19My damage was internal, unseen.
05:21I carry it with me.
05:23You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time,
05:28my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice.
05:33And then the judge announces,
05:37okay, thanks everyone for coming.
05:39It'll be six months,
05:41even though we had been fighting for a year and a half
05:44to get to that moment, you know, court dismissed.
05:49And I remember immediately
05:52just being flooded with humiliation.
05:55I was in the day, there was a million views.
06:09Within four days, there was 11 million.
06:13And I couldn't immediately comprehend what was happening.
06:17I couldn't immediately accept like,
06:19oh, you've done something good or courageous.
06:23It was only because of other people
06:26that I awakened to this part of myself.
06:46The conversation is changing,
06:49but the conversation can only do so much to protect us.
06:54And systemically, I still don't feel like we are heard
06:59or taken care of.
07:10In the beginning, I thought if anyone ever finds out
07:15that this person in the case is me,
07:18I'll never get a job again.
07:20I wanted to write children's books.
07:22I thought that will get thrown out the window
07:25because I'm this dark story.
07:29And it was only when people started sending me letters
07:35and sending me pictures of their own kids and daughters
07:38that they said, we hope she grows up to be like you.
07:43And I realized that the public
07:46didn't just see me as this case.
07:48They saw me as this embodiment of all these qualities
07:52like courage and resilience and being outspoken.
07:57And I realized that the case never had a chance
08:03at swallowing my whole identity.
08:05And same for any survivor out there.
08:07We just possess too much.
08:10We have too many stories and qualities
08:13that can never be trapped in a single event
08:18defined by someone else's violence.
08:29I fully realized that I can be a children's book author
08:34and illustrator now.
08:35And I really appreciate,
08:37I saw moms writing to me about how they're survivors too.
08:43And they were reminding me survivors
08:45don't live in a corner.
08:48We are everywhere embedded in our society.
08:52Of course it's okay to be a survivor
08:55and then be anything else you want.
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