TW: sexual assault
If you’ve been watching the news recently, you’ve probably heard about Jane Doe and the Cornell 7 case. If you haven’t, let me give you a brief summary of what happened:
In October 2024, a 20-year-old Cornell student (Jane Doe) went to the Chi Phi fraternity house to meet someone she believed was a friend. According to her lawsuit, she was instead given ketamine, marijuana, and alcohol before being sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members while she was unable to consent. She reported what happened to Cornell University Police the following month, and Cornell’s investigation ultimately resulted in suspensions and expulsions. Although no criminal charges were filed at the time, the case was reopened in September 2026 and has since been turned over to the New York Attorney General’s Office. Her civil lawsuit is also still ongoing.
As someone who is both a therapist and a sexual assault (SA) survivor, this news has been particularly disturbing and painful to learn about. Over the past few years, I’ve heard testimonies from several clients about their own experiences of SA, many of whom have felt deep shame, confusion, fear, and helplessness as a result. It has been a strangely empowering experience to be a survivor myself while working therapeutically with clients to process trauma that hadn’t yet made sense to anyone else.
This case has challenged everyone — men, women, nonbinary folks, parents, teachers, religious leaders, therapists, and others — to reflect on the significant differences in how women must navigate the world in order to survive it. Russ Peterman, the pastor at University Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, delivered a sermon on October 4, 2026, and addressed this very issue in response to the Cornell 7 case:
“When a woman comes forward with something that is this painful, that is this costly, that is this terrifying to say out loud, the first response cannot be suspicion. This isn’t about one night at Cornell. I’m talking about a culture that has spent centuries finding reasons not to believe women…Somewhere along the way, the conversation has gotten flipped — the women have been the ones taught to watch their drinks, and to travel in pairs, and to text when they get home. The conversation about protecting women from men has been a conversation that women have been having with each other about how to stay safe from [men] — and that’s wrong, and it has to change. You see, the conversation shouldn’t begin by teaching women how to avoid being assaulted; it must begin by teaching men not to be the ones who assault.”
One of Peterman’s calls to action is to believe survivors. It takes an immense amount of courage to come forward about SA, and there is almost always a deep fear of not being believed — or even being blamed for what happened. Sexual trauma can disrupt the way memories are processed and stored, such that the events may feel scrambled, fragmented, distorted, or even absent, all while the body continues to carry and relive the effects of the trauma. This is why it can take women several days, weeks, or even months to come forward.
In my sessions with clients who have experienced SA, I tell them that trauma can create what feels like a brain-body split: you may have memories of the trauma that feel almost as though they happened to someone else while simultaneously experiencing somatic and psychological symptoms such as panic attacks, hypervigilance, dissociation, and depersonalization.
Sexual assault takes away the pieces of yourself that you thought were yours and gives you new ones that are more jagged, dark, and impossible to place. The healing that happens after an assault doesn’t remove those new pieces — it works around them to create something more powerful, more courageous, and more resilient in spite of their threatening nature.
So much of sexual violence happens behind closed doors — and so does much of what comes afterward. The shame, fear, confusion, and trauma that survivors carry are often invisible to everyone around them. As therapists, we are sometimes given the privilege of being invited behind those doors and trusted with the pieces of a story that someone may not yet feel safe enough to share anywhere else.
There is hope to be found in the midst of the profound suffering that can accompany sexual violence. As therapists, we have both a responsibility and a call to action to create spaces where survivors are believed, where their experiences can be safely processed, and where hope, courage, and resilience can begin.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual violence, you can call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800)-656-HOPE, or text HOPE to 64673. Their services are available 24/7. More information can be found here.
