PROFESSOR REVEALS How To Heal Your Mind & OVERCOME TRAUMA | Deborah Tuerkheimer & Lewis Howes

I believe that each one of us actually does have the power to do better, and that's how we're going to transform culture. We do it person by person. We do it one.

I think you got to have a dream. The school of greatness, really.

Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes.

What would you say are the biggest signs that someone has been abused sexually or gone through some type of sexual misconduct in their life? If they're not speaking about it, what can we look for as a friend, a family member, a peer, a co worker, to be like, huh, something's happening. I wonder if it's sexual misconduct.

Yeah. I have heard you speak about your story. It's so powerful. And I think it really brings home how it can help on that path toward healing when someone is able to talk about what happened. Absolutely. And yet it's so difficult. And we can talk more about why that is in terms of signs. I got an email just this morning from a man whose daughter was sexually assaulted. And she stayed quiet about it, he said, for over a decade. And he said, looking back, he saw what he called behavioral changes. Really, this is on my mind because it just came into my box this morning. But I don't think it's unusual. Part of the problem is it's easier to see in hindsight. And we all change and go through transitions throughout our lives for lots of different reasons. Not only because we've been victimized, but I do think that often when someone experiences something traumatic, a sexual assault, let's say, or maybe ongoing sexual harassment, they are giving signs to the people near them that might indicate that there's something going on. And if you're a friend, a family member, maybe it's worth asking, right?

What if someone never is willing to open up about it? How do you create a safe space consistently if they're like, no, nothing ever happened, but really they're just so afraid to talk about it, you know?

Yeah. Well, I think that honoring that is really important. I mean, people will speak, I think, when they're ready to speak. And what we can do if we're close to someone is let them know that we're here, and we will support them when they are ready to talk about what happened. And maybe it's in a therapeutic setting. Maybe that's the first place where someone discloses. Maybe it's to a roommate or to a friend or family member. But I think what we can do is just be there and be ready and not try to force a disclosure before someone is ready, because the consequences can be so Enormous, Right?

Absolutely. How long have you been studying this in the world? Because you've been doing this with law and you've been studying this professor, but how long has this been for you now?

Well, my first job was as a prosecutor, and I handled child abuse and domestic violence and sex crimes cases. That was in Manhattan, and that was now, you know, many years ago. I graduated from law school in, like, the mid-90s.

Okay.

And so ever since, I've been thinking about these kinds of cases and thinking about the people who are victimized.

Okay, what drew you to this work? Was it seeing a case that you're like, this is just not fair, or this is unjust, or people are going through not getting their fair justice? What was the thing that really said, I want to fight for this or be a stand for this?

Well, the domestic violence cases that I handled from the very beginning were the most compelling to me. And I did feel like when people are hurt by those they trust, that injury is just devastating in a way that no other really is. And it seemed to me that the system didn't respond very well to those kinds of crimes, and people didn't really know what to make of it. And so I think that was the beginning of thinking about this on a sustained basis.

What were like, the common crimes that you would see? What were the themes that just kept happening where you're like, this is unfair, or that the system doesn't work in the advantage of someone who actually had something harmful happen to them? What were those common themes?

Yeah, a lot was just the expectation that we put on the victim to behave in certain ways. And then when victims didn't, they would be penalized and they wouldn't get justice.

Their credibility, they lost their credibility for being emotional or lashing out or screaming or whatever.

Or not leaving. Right. Staying in the relationship, not breaking it off.

You could have left at any moment. Why'd you stay?

Right.

So maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought.

Right, Absolutely.

Saying these things.

Yeah. You didn't leave. You didn't report right away. You didn't. Yeah. You didn't sever all contact. And so these kinds of things were held against victims, and they weren't able to get the justice they deserved.

Let's say someone did leave, they blocked the person, they severed all contact, and then they brought this to the courts. Would. Would they get their justice or was it still. They weren't credible?

Did you see there were still such barriers to belief?

Really?

Yeah. I think that cases involving children and cases involving women who Are alleging sexual or domestic violence are some of the hardest to prove because we don't want to believe it. It's so deeply threatening, I think, to the way that we think about our intimate relationships and the ways that we interact and the ways that we want to imagine gender relations, that it's just destabilizing.

So domestic violence, it's hard to believe that is what we're saying, like, he beat me or she beat me. It's hard for someone to believe that in the courts.

I think it's hard to believe it and hard not to blame the victim.

And hard for their part in it.

For their part in it.

It's not just like, okay, he or she didn't just hit you for no reason. He wouldn't just walk up and hit you. There had to be something that caused the argument, the stress, which, obviously, there's nothing that can justify hitting someone, but that's what they would say, right? Like, well, you instigated or you. What would they say?

Typically, yeah.

What did you do to bring this upon yourself? What did you do? And, you know, there's also this need to care about what happened and to think that it's important enough to, if you're a juror, to convict. Right. To act in some way. So you've got to believe it, you've got to not blame the victim. And then in the end, you've got to care enough to do something about it. Otherwise it just goes on and nothing is done.

Well, the probably also has to have evidence. Right. There's got to be some type of evidence of what happened. And it goes between what he said and she said.

Yeah, right. Well, that's true.

Right.

In every criminal case, these are hard to prove. They're beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard of proof in criminal court. And that's rightly a high standard. But when it comes to these kinds of cases, as a practical matter, it's even more difficult to prove.

Really? Yeah. There's no video footage. Especially if there's no video footage. It's like, who do we believe?

Yeah. I mean, credibility is at the heart of these cases. And going back to your earlier question, I think that's when I really started to kind of focus on this as the central thread that runs through it all.

Credibility is everything.

It is.

And each side, I'm assuming, of the case is trying to decredit the other person. Is that typically how it goes?

Yeah, and that's not.

Let's get the facts straight. Let's just decredit the person so their facts don't seem legit.

Yeah.

And that's our adversary system. Right. That's how it works. That's, you know, there are rules of evidence that constrain what lawyers can do, but that's the game. That's how it's going to go. And so I think what we ought to be concerned about or to sort of look out for is what works, what strategies work to win the case. Yeah. If a defense attorney gets up there and asks, what were you wearing? And the jury doesn't care, then those questions are going to stop coming. It's only if it works that those questions are going to keep coming.

Interesting. Has there ever been cases that you've seen over the years where someone who committed the crime is like, you know what? Everything this person is saying is true. I did 100% of these things. It's my fault. I take full responsibility. You're right. Sorry. Give me my punishment. Do you ever see that?

Well, when I was a prosecutor, defendants could plead guilty before trial, and that did often happen.

Yeah.

And sometimes they pled guilty because, you know, they didn't want to face a trial. Sometimes I think they pled guilty because they accepted responsibility. So it can happen.

Okay, that's good then, right?

It's good.

Okay. And how many of these cases. How many of these cases do you see that are men against women and women against men? Like where the victim is the man or the victim is the woman? Is it highly skewed with women, I'm assuming, being.

Yes.

So the vast majority of cases.

90%, 99%?

Upwards of 90%, 90%. Yeah.

But there are some cases in the other way.

There were a few, and those tended to be a little bit different in the way that the pattern of violence looked. Gotcha. But it is absolutely the case that women can be violent and that men can be victims of female violence and male violence.

I've heard of some men who've been assaulted but don't have the courage to come out and speak about it or do anything because it's even more, you know, in their mind, it's shameful to not be able to handle that or to be beaten by a woman or hit by a woman. It's like. Is that something you've studied as well? Like just maybe men not even talking about the violence or the sexual misconduct in that way because it's looked as just shameful or weak or whatever it might be that men might feel?

Yeah, I think that that's. That's very true. I mean, in the Thinking about why people don't come forward. And we know that most victims of particularly sexual violence will never, will never report. And silencing is a huge problem. And one of the reasons is the anticipated reaction of people. What are people going to say? And if you're a man and you've been assaulted, this is often, I think, going to be on your mind. Am I going to be disbelieved or discredited? Because the notion is that men don't.

Get hurt or made fun of or whatever. Judged and embarrassed.

Yeah. And we should also say that in same sex relationships there are different dynamics that come up with these barriers to belief.

And you talk about a thing called a credibility complex. What does that mean?

The idea is that we're shaped by forces. We don't even realize it, but we're shaped by these forces that impact how we think about credibility. We all want to believe that we're being fair and that we're judging credibility in an unbiased way. But we live in this culture that shapes the way we think about credibility. And our law shapes the way we think about credibility. And most of us don't even notice it. So, I mean, it's fascinating and I think really important to start to see these forces and start to kind of unpack how we're thinking about credibility so we can do better.

So we have to essentially reshape the way our psychology thinks about credibility, which has been around for, I guess, thousands of years, I'm assuming are longer. So how do we reshape our minds about credibility then? What's the step for us to do that? Is it first with the law, how it's shaped, or is it with human behavior and psychology?

I think it's got to be culture moving and reforming law along the way.

Got it.

I mean, there are lots of places in our law that I think need to be changed. But the bigger task is to transform the way our culture imagines credibility and metes out credibility judgments. But it sounds overwhelming. And as we're talking about it, it can seem like way too big to make any progress. But I believe that each one of us actually does have the power to do better. And that's how we're going to transform culture. We do it person by person. We do it one credibility judgment at a time.

Okay, so if you could shape culture in this moment, Deborah, if you could say what I'm about to say is going to change the way we think about each other as human beings and the credibility of one another moving forward. The law Will shape around this. The way we perceive ourselves would shape around this. What would you say if you could snap your fingers and people started to view things differently? What would need to happen?

We would need to start to care more about people across differences. We would need to find shared humanity and realize that when someone has been hurt, it matters and be willing to disrupt the status quo in order to send that really powerful message that this survivor counts, that what happened is wrong, and that it has to change. There has to be some accountability in our lives, in our formal systems. But even just in the way that we react with one another.

Right.

We tolerate way too much abuse in our midst. And if we really care about this issue, we need to start making clear that it's not acceptable. All of us have a role in that.

Okay, so what is the. What could someone who has been sexually abused or dealt with sexual misconduct, how should they approach communicating it? To be believed by their friends, to be believed by their boss or co workers, to be believed by the family or society? Or what would you say is like, okay, an event happened that you were sexually abused or abused in some way and it was not okay? Like, you did what you needed to do to stop it. You said no. Whatever you tried to do, it was clear that this was not okay, but it happened and the person did the abuse. What should be the next step for someone? And how can someone, if they're listening to this or watching this, what actions should they take next? Or a friend that happened to someone, what could they say to their friend that they should do next?

Well, part of the problem is that most of us don't really understand trauma. And we see someone as being deceitful when in fact they're impacted by trauma. So I'll give you some examples. When someone comes forward and doesn't have a full and complete memory, everything, often that's perceived as well. Why can't you tell me the story from A to Z with every letter in between?

Because you try to protect yourself. Your brain protects yourself from trauma.

Yeah, absolutely.

Try to block it out.

Yes. And neuroscientists are really clear about all the ways in which we really shouldn't expect a narrative to be linear and complete. But most of us aren't neuroscientists. And so unless we've experienced trauma ourselves or we've become educated about it, we might believe that someone is lying when they're not. And so that's a really hard truth to hear if you're someone who has been traumatized. Right. Because what are you going to do about it? You sort of have to prepare yourself for people not responding the way you'd want them to respond. I do think that we're becoming, as a society, a little bit more educated about trauma and a little bit better. Better versed in the idea that people don't always report right away. And when they do, they may remember certain, for instance, sensory perceptions more than they do, let's say, everything that happened right before, everything that happened right after. But if you're someone who's going to come forward, I think you have to be, you know, sort of prepared for someone to say, I want to. Why don't you remember A, B or C?

Right.

If you're the person listening, you don't have to do that.

Right.

You can be a person who learns about trauma and recognizes that when your friend discloses to you, it may not be the story that you're expecting to hear. And that person may be more emotional than you expect or maybe less emotional than you expect. And none of that means that the person is lying.

Right. This is interesting because. Educate me on the legal system. Do they go more based on the story or actual facts of what has happened in a scenario? In just the law in general, Is it more like the story that's shaped around the facts or the facts itself? Well. Or is it everything kind of combined?

Yeah. I mean, we only. Can we get at the facts through what.

What.

What people describe.

Got it.

And if you're a law enforcement officer, what you'd want to see is, is that there would be more evidence gathered that there would be corroboration of someone's account.

Interesting.

But oftentimes that doesn't happen.

Gosh, it's so hard to communicate it then. Right?

It's so hard to communicate it then. And when a person is skeptical and you're describing abuse, I think it becomes even more difficult to sort of persevere. And so we put these really, really heavy burdens on survivors. And we have these systems that are just not responsive the way we would. I think, as people of goodwill and good faith, we'd want them to respond.

Right, Man. Because I'm just trying to think if someone was telling me a story. I mean, how do we come from an unbiased point of view to listen and not think? Like, are they elaborating this? Are they diminishing what happened? Is it. Because when I know in the past, when I felt extreme hurt in my soul, my heart, I can elaborate sometimes, you know, personally, I can be like, you know, this Is. But what actually happened is the facts. And how I felt is, like the story around the facts. So how can someone communicate it effectively to get justice? Is it like. It just seems like a messy, challenging thing? It just seems hard.

It's really messy. There's a difference, I think, between talking to, like, a police officer and a prosecutor and a friend.

And a friend.

And, you know, I think, again, I hesitate to put more burden on the shoulders of survivors because they're dealing with so much in the aftermath. But I will say that context matters, and who you're talking to and what you want to get out of that conversation might impact what it is that you're going to talk about and how much detail you're going to go into and how much you're going to lean into the feeling side of it as opposed to the fact side of it.

Got it. Okay. Wow. It just seems messy for survivors to try to, like, communicate this and be credible. Right. It just seems messy. So why do we protect the abusers or the accused abusers? Either one. Why do we protect those individuals over their survivors more?

Well, I think one answer is that when we're asked to believe an account of an abuse and we're asked to do something about it, that's difficult. Right. It's easier to do nothing and to just preserve the status quo. Sometimes we do that by saying, it's a he said, she said, there's nothing I can do. I don't know what happened. Wow. But that's protecting the abuser.

Interesting.

It's not changing anything. And when nothing changes, he's protected.

So what should happen next? If it's a friend listening, Is it. Do you. Do you approach the abuser as a friend or you just say, we need to go to the police right now, or what should happen next if it's a friend listening, trying to help.

Yeah. One thing is to realize if you're a friend listening or a family member listening, your standard is not beyond a reasonable doubt. You're not criminal, court, jury, you're not sentencing someone to prison. Right. So the notion that you have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt by something I think is off base. And for people to realize that can be important because it then frees you up to say, this is my friend asking me to support him or her. I can do that.

I can be here and be a listener and support you and.

Right. And I think from the survivors I've spoken to over the years, that's really what they need in that moment, is to have that person Say, I'm here for you. You know, I'm here to support you. Do you want, do you want me to go to the police precinct with you to help you file a report? Do you want me to help you find a therapist? Do you want to talk to someone who's professional? Do you just want to be able to talk to me? What is it that you need? I'm here for you.

Yes. Should all accounts of all levels, or all accounts of sexual misconduct or physical abuse, do you believe all levels ranges should be taken to the police, or should there be only a certain once it crosses a certain level or you know, once it happens so many times? Like what should happen?

I think there's a continuum. There's a spectrum of gender based violence and sexual violence. And it's really only at those more severe ends of the spectrum that we define something as criminal.

Gotcha. Can you give me what does that range look like, what's criminal and what's not criminal?

So like for instance, the criminal law would prohibit, let's say, sexual intercourse or sexual contact without consent and sometimes also with force.

Okay. Without consent. Okay.

But wouldn't prohibit what we might consider to be street harassment. Right.

Someone like talking nasty or flirting or whatever and not stopping, constantly walking after someone and talking to them, going around the block and saying things, saying give me your number or whatever they want to say. Right.

Something would have to be severe or protracted. Now if someone, you know was a stalker and it continued, then you could imagine it being a criminal matter.

Got it.

But the criminal law really deals with just the most egregious conduct. And short of that, interesting, we have workplace sexual harassment law and that's, you know, something that covers employees, some employees. And then we have a lot of misconduct that isn't covered by law and that we have to deal with in.

Different ways, just with family, friends and facing it and saying, hey, this is not acceptable for me, this behavior. Gotcha. Okay. So the law is saying without consent or with force. If that happens, you should be taking this to the police.

Well, you can take it to the police. I don't know if I'm in a position to tell every survivor that that's the right course because our criminal justice system so often responds so poorly.

What usually happens if you take something to the police where there was without consent happened or with force, what most of the time happens?

Well, you know, the arrest rates in depending upon the police department, the jurisdiction are fairly low. So, you know, maybe 20% on average across the country and the rest will happen. Uh huh. And the rest of those cases go nowhere. And along the way it can be, it can be difficult to be, to be told either I don't believe you or it was your fault, you were drinking, you know, you were doing whatever, or it just doesn't seem that serious and we're not going to move forward. Like those are really difficult things to hear. And survivors often say that the aftermath is worse than more trauma. The abuse. Yeah.

Just constantly reliving it for months and months is more painful than moving on.

Especially when you don't have that validation.

Right.

When you don't have that officer or Prosecutor or Title 9 officer, HR officer, saying yeah, this happened and it was wrong and I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to hold him accountable. If you don't have that, then you feel, I think you can feel even more alone.

Yeah. Do you know how many cases of sexual misconduct happen a year that are, I guess, counted? Do we know this from like the courts and police departments?

No. I mean you'd have to. Each state has, you know, keeps its own statistics. The federal, you know, the FBI keeps its own statistics. Everything is really disaggregated. And then we also have to remember again that most of it never gets reported. So we're seeing like a tiny fraction when we look at these systems. We're only seeing a little bit of.

All comes down to credibility.

It comes down to credibility.

Credibility. Who's credible?

Yes. And we can have all of the laws in the world and yet if we don't get credibility. Right. It doesn't, they don't matter. They don't mean anything really.

So what can a, what can I guess, a victim do to build credibility then?

Well, I know from people who are journalists, for instance, that one thing that they will often ask if they're reporting out a story is did you tell anyone around the time, even if you didn't report to the police, did you disclose. Is there anyone in your orbit who we can talk to who will remember what you said?

Yeah, yeah.

You telling me or going back to our earlier conversation, were there changes in your life that people may have witnessed. Right. That in retrospect can corroborate the idea that something bad happened. And so there are ways to go back in time if you know, somebody comes forward publicly or to the police only years after the fact. There are ways to kind of go back, but it's really difficult. This is a theme, how messy and complicated all of this is.

So if something happens to you, you should speak to a friend or two right away is what I'm hearing you say.

I'm hoping that for people who have been victimized that they can find someone in their life who they trust to tell.

What about writing a letter, journaling, does that help too, to be like, I recall them some things.

And yeah, that's another powerful form of evidence if it ever comes to it. Right. This is my diary and this is what I wrote down or I wrote a letter, I kept an account about it. So that can be really effective. But it's also really difficult, as you say, to relive all of that. To have to do that kind of processing so close to the incident itself, I think is often too much to bear.

And why do you think it's so hard for people to leave, I guess relationships of violence or with a theme of these kind of explosions or misconduct. Why do you think it's so hard for someone to leave those relationships after six months, year, years of being in kind of the same environment?

Yeah, I mean, so many reasons. There's maybe financial dependence, maybe there are kids in the mix and this individual is a decent, seems like a decent parent. Often it's frightening to leave because leaving can be the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship. Or there's still an emotional connection and you know, often this is not bad all the time and there's still love in the relationship there. You know, there are so many vulnerabilities that are at play here and these lives are often really intertwined. And that's true in relationships that aren't abusive. And that's true in relationships that are abusive.

Right. So what can someone do so it doesn't get to that place so that, okay, we've been in this environment. I feel like, man, I don't feel safe when this happens. Maybe it's only once every three to six months that my partner lashes out or does these things. How can they support themselves if they're not going to leave? Maybe a semi toxic relationship to shift the relationship so that those things don't happen again.

Yeah, it's a lot to ask of someone who's in a relationship that is controlling, which is sort of maybe what you're describing. And the violence isn't ongoing, but it's sporadic. It's really hard to get someone to change. And so I tend to think that looking out for these warning signs is really important and being able to sort of protect oneself as best as one can because again, it's just going to be really difficult to put the burden on yourself if you're in this relationship to change him.

Yeah. And why do you think abusers are protected in general? Why are they over the years, why have they been protected?

Well, they tend to be, you know, tend to have more power in our society, more status, more privilege, more authority.

And more money or whatever.

Yeah, absolutely. We, we revere, often we revere some of these men and, you know, we've seen in the MeToo era, some of them have been brought to some justice. And, you know, the conviction of Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly recently illustrate that we maybe can do better. But think of all of the years, the decades and the many, many victims before we were able to sort of do anything to hold these men to account.

And Michael Jackson as well, even. Nothing happened until after, many years after his death when a documentary came out and he got away from trial. Right, he went to trial and it got out.

I think that's right. And these are revered. These are revered men. I mean, they are sort of the.

You don't want to believe. Is that what it is?

You don't want to believe that they, that they would be capable of this. And, and you'd rather believe that either, you know, these, these, these victims or.

Seeking attention or they were trying to. Which. Is that ever the case, though? Is there certain cases where what an accuser is saying didn't happen? Oh, I mean, what in the victor saying like that didn't really happen?

You know. Yes, you know, it is. It has to be said that false allegations occur. Right. And it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but it happens much less frequently than people tend to think. And so like, the best estimates are around 5% of allegations of sexual violence are false.

Okay.

And if you ask law enforcement officers or even just people on the street, what do you think that number is? It tends to be like, oh, 50, 50 or a majority.

Wow. Really? A majority. Wow. You think it's more like 5%?

More like 5% is what the research suggests.

Wow. Okay. Powerful. Interesting. So why is someone like you mentioned R. Kelly, why is. Because didn't he have like a trial like, I don't know, back in the 2005 or 8 or something? And then, but then I don't even know what happened.

He was acquitted. He was found out. Guilty.

Found out guilty. Back in 2000 something in Chicago.

Yeah, in the early Chicago.

And this was probably after years or maybe decades of him kind of building this relationship with these young women. I haven't watched the documentary, the series or whatever it is, so I'm actually out of the loop. But what happened recently and why did it take someone so long for this to happen when people knew it was happening for years? You know, people have been speaking about it for years. It wasn't just like a couple of girls. It was like dozens and dozens, I guess. So why does it take so many people for finally, okay, now we'll make something happen.

So many people and the work of so many people. Surviving R. Kelly, the doc series. Yeah, the Mute R. Kelly campaign.

That's crazy.

And it was young women of color who tend to be most easily cast aside. And so this wasn't a case, I think, where people didn't believe it was happening. They just didn't care enough to do anything, really. So people kept buying his music. And he had, according to a journalist by the name of Jim DeRogatis, who's written about this for years, and he's done so much work to uncover this. He puts the number in the thousands. The people who knew and just didn't care just let it go on what he had, you know, he had people around him. He had bodyguards and drivers and, you know, managers, and people just looked the other way.

This was happening for decades, right?

Yes.

And he was just convicted. Just convicted in Brooklyn.

What Just came to Brooklyn. What happened? What was the sentence? I don't even know what happened. I'm not even aware.

He has not yet been sentenced.

He hasn't been sentenced to.

He will be sentenced to likely the rest of his life, really.

So for decades, seemingly good men and women were aware of this, but didn't take action. So what I'm hearing you say is this is a cultural thing first. Like, we should just become better human beings with the people around us and not be a stand for this. If someone. This is happening in someone's life.

Yeah. This goes back to the idea that we need to care more. We need to find shared humanity and act when we see suffering in our midst, whether it's sexual violence or any other kind of violence, it's not okay just to turn the other way.

How do we work on not shifting blame onto victims, then? How do we not blame and discredit? How do we truly listen to what they're saying, the facts, their feelings, believe 100% of their word and then be in support. How do we not blame?

Certain kinds of scenarios are most likely to trigger blame. And so we can start by recognizing, like, oh, intoxication. Right. That's something that as a culture, we are very likely to sort of point the finger and blame shift. When there's drinking, it's almost like, oh.

If you had one sip, then I can't trust you.

Yep.

Or it's your fault, or you were. You could have left at any moment or whatever. The.

Yeah.

I mean, we sort of put this burden on victims to fend off the abuse. And if they don't or can't, they didn't fight hard enough, or they were intoxicated, or maybe they went back to his apartment and they were interested in doing something short of what happened.

Right.

But all of that is seen as sort of asking for it. And it seems just to say it out loud maybe sounds kind of retrograde. And there are maybe people listening who think like, oh, I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. But it's so ingrained in us that I think even people who think of themselves as, you know, being progressive and, you know, not falling into that trap, we just. We just, I think, almost instinctively start to ask, what did this person do? And there's a psychological reason for it. Like, it's protective to think that if we all behave the way we should, we're not going to get hurt. It's called the just world theory.

Just thinking that this person will be a decent person, and I wouldn't do this. So I'm assuming this person wouldn't do this.

Yeah. And that we're all going to be safe if we just do the right thing. We can keep ourselves safe. Bad things only happen when people bring it upon themselves. And, like, the world would be a better place and it would be a safer place if that were true. It's not true.

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that's a. That's an interesting scenario. I'm not sure if this happens a lot where if, like, okay, well, the. The victim went to the person's apartment. You. You went there. You could have not gone there, but maybe they wanted to have some interaction, but they didn't want it to go as far as it did. And so that becomes discredited. Well, you were there. You could have left at any moment type of conversation. Right.

Yeah. And part of what's so tragic is that this also gets internalized by victims. And so it's not just that other people are blaming and saying, why did you go back? You didn't know him that well, or you'd been drinking. But the person who was hurt is very likely to ask those same questions, blaming themselves.

Yes.

Why was I such an idiot? I could have left at this moment. At this moment. They could have said this to themselves.

Yeah. Those same cultural forces are taken on board by survivors.

Yeah. This is just messy.

It's difficult. Yes.

What do you want people to know about this? And do you think it's important for people to be sharing their abuse stories publicly, you know, on social media and talking about their abuse stories? Should they only be addressing it privately with the person that it interacted with and their friends and family or to the. The law? Like, how should people handle this moving forward?

I think it's such a personal decision. I think it's not for anyone else to judge who someone shares their story with, on what terms, when. But I do believe that kind of in this MeToo era that we're living in now, it is becoming easier. I'm not gonna say easy. It's not easy.

It's still hard. It's becoming really hard. It's becoming more accepted. Accepted to do it.

Yes. That there are more stories that are being told, and it can be really empowering and it can be validating. It's just not always that way. And so I wouldn't want to be heard to say, hey, everybody out there, go tell your stories. It's going to be great. It's not always great.

Yeah. And it might be messy for many months. You might have to relive the trauma and deal with a lot of that stuff, too.

Absolutely. And because we don't have systems that deal fairly with these kinds of allegations, and because we in our daily lives don't always do as well as we should, survivors bear the brunt of it.

Oh, man. So if you could give some advice to someone who's dealt with this, whether it be recently or in their past, and they haven't addressed it with a friend or family member or publicly or the police, what would you say should be their steps moving forward? Is it call a therapist? Is it tell a friend? What would you say moving forward they should do?

I would say think about whether there's someone either in your life or someone who you could call upon, like a therapist, like a counselor, maybe a teacher who you trust to begin processing this with. And maybe that's a first step and, you know, and maybe it leads to a formal complaint down the road, and maybe it doesn't. But to be able to release this burden that you're carrying, if you can find a way to do that, then that probably will help on the path toward healing.

Right. At least for your own healing. Maybe you won't get justice and whatever happened, but you'll feel like you can let go of this. The weight, the pain, the trauma.

And at the same time, I think it's not. It's not wrong to, you know, to keep silent if that. If that's what you can do.

Right.

If that's all that you can do. It's not for anyone else to judge that silence. And I think that we, in the, you know, in sort of the me too moment, we want to be able to say everyone should tell their stories. And I just want to be careful to say that what's right for one survivor may not be right for another.

Got it? Yeah. Yeah. So just because someone's saying you need to share this publicly doesn't mean you have to if you don't want to.

Yeah.

I mean, one of the women I spoke to for the book described being criticized for how she shared her story, her friend. People in her friend group didn't think that it was appropriate to do it the way she did it. And it involved social media. So you sort of have to expect that the reaction may not be what you want it to be. And at a time when you're feeling vulnerable and when you need the support of your community, to get the opposite is brutal.

Yeah. So just be mindful who you're sharing with first. Make sure it's someone you feel like is not going to judge you or shame you or put you down, a safe confidant to speak with or a therapist, a confidential therapist, and then figure out your next step from there. That's what I'm hearing you say.

I think that's right.

What are we to get when we go through this book? Why we doubt accusers and protect abusers.

Oh, well, if you are someone who's experienced abuse and you've come forward and had a horrible aftermath or an aftermath that was less than what you wanted, you didn't get the response from the people you turned to, I think you'll understand better why that happened. When you read the book, if you haven't come forward, I think you'll understand more why you've been silenced and how the credibility complex can silence you.

Right.

And if you're someone who either has heard an allegation of abuse from your co worker, your roommate, your family member, or you're gonna hear that allegation because we're now in this time when stories are being told. Right. The book will help you deal and respond more fairly. And I think the way that you'd want to respond in a way that's not biased and that doesn't rely on misunderstandings about trauma and the way victims behave, but is more accurate and is more informed.

So who should be getting it then? Someone who's listening that if they haven't dealt with any sexual misconduct themselves, should they get it for themselves to be educated? Or is it more for someone who's been, who dealt with who's a victim, who's gone through this?

Everyone should get the book because, you know, frankly, most people, especially women, but men as well, have experienced some kind of sexual violation in the past. And it may not be on the severe side, it may not be criminal, but it's something that makes all of us, I think, relate to the experience or many of us, most of us, and then the rest of the people out there who are listening, who maybe can't relate to what it's like to be a victim and come forward, are going to hear from someone they love and are going to want to do.

Right by that person eventually in the future. Well, I think the statistic, If I'm remembering one in four women have been sexually abused. One in six men have been sexually abused. There's a resource for men one in six.org that helps men unpack and figure out how to deal with the shame and come forward. And there's a resource line there. You can call people@one insix.org I'm not sure the best places for women if you have a resource.

I have a resource page on my website and the 1 in 6 organization is on the resource page as well.

Yeah, it's a great organization. And your website, which you're not that prominent on social media, but your website, Deborah, it's just your name. Deborah Turkheimer. Right?

That's it.

Okay, so if you go there, we'll link it up there and make sure everyone has access to that. We're going to get you on social media here soon. It's my goal. Start putting some of this stuff in the book out on social media.

We'll see.

We'll see about that.

Get one of your students to make an account for you and put it out there. The book's called why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. I think it's extremely timely right now with everything that's happened and all the different series and documentaries that are coming out. You can learn more why certain people have gotten away with these things for years, why our society has allowed certain people to get away with these things for years and not held a higher standard and how we can start to shift that around for the better. So I want to acknowledge you, Deborah, for doing the work You've been doing for so long and being passionate about trying to find justice for people that don't find justice, that are going through a really challenging time, whether there was a criminal act against them or just something that was just they didn't want, you know, that they didn't want, that wasn't criminal. Figuring out how to be heard, seen, acknowledged, how to heal that process moving forward, because I know it can for some be extremely scarring for the rest of their life, until they learn how to release the trauma, until they learn how to communicate effectively, which is extremely hard to do because as I know, you study with therapists and psychologists and neurologists that the brain kind of blocks these traumas to protect us. So learning how to unblock and let it go in a healthy way is a very powerful thing to do. And as my therapist tells me, healing is not an event, it's a journey. It takes time. Just because you say something one time doesn't mean you're healed and everything's good. This may take years, decades for people to fully release and let go. So I acknowledge you for doing the work, doing the research, being a valuable voice, even if you're not on social media yet, but being a valuable voice and putting this resource out there.

Thank you.

And I'm going to encourage you to be on social media and start sharing more. I've seen some of your videos and I'm excited for you to start doing more interviews on this. So we can go to your website, we can get the book there, we can get it on Amazon. How else can we be of support to you with this message?

You know, I appreciate everything you've said and I, you know, I put everything into the book. As you say, I'm passionate about this. I believe we can do better. The book is written not in a kind of pointing fingers way, not in a way to suggest that people are bad apples or that they want to hurt victims or protect abusers, not at all. It proceeds on the assumption that we all want to do right and we want a world in which sexual abuse isn't happening. And so, you know, my hope is that people will read the book and make changes in their daily lives. That's how we change culture. We don't wave a magic wand and remake our culture overnight. We don't remake our law overnight. But each one of us, in the way that we interact with the person who we're closest to, can make the world better.

Yeah, one interaction at a time. And with the family, with friends, it doesn't have to be like to the world, but one friendship at a time. This is a question I ask everyone at the end of our interview. It's called the Three Truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth, a hypothetical scenario, and you've accomplished all of your wildest dreams and goals.

Okay.

Everything's come true for you, personally and professionally.

Okay.

But for whatever reason, all the work you've created, this book and all the messages you put out into the world, they have to go somewhere else. We don't have access to them anymore. They're gone from this world. They're in some other world. So we don't have access to your content anymore, but you get to leave behind three lessons to learn three things you know to be true from your experiences in life that you'd want to leave with us. This is all we have to remember of your message. What would you say are those three truths?

Okay, I'm going to start with people are complicated and imperfect. And so what we can do is find shared humanity and show grace, be generous when we interact with our fellow human beings.

Yes.

That's one. My second truth is integrity is essential.

Yes.

And we'll always make mistakes and we'll fall short because going back to that first truth, we're imperfect, but we can act with integrity. We can be true to ourselves and our values and our core commitments. And that seems to me to be the core of sort of what it is to be a good human being. And then I get one more. One more truth. Okay. I'll say anger can be channeled toward change. And that when you see injustice in the world or unfairness or inequality or someone who's hurting, someone who's suffering, and it makes you mad or indignant or frustrated, or maybe you feel that way because you yourself have been wronged. You can harness it and you can. You can make change in the world.

Yeah. Use it for good.

Absolutely.

Channel your anger for something more meaningful than just holding onto the anger. I love that. Anything else we can do to support you before the final question?

I feel very supportive. This has been a great conversation.

Good, good. I want to get the message out there.

Yeah. I appreciate it.

Okay. Deborah, the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

Okay.

I'm going to say doing or being in ways that transcend self interest and elevate the good of another person or other people. That's greatness.

Deborah, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

I want you to stick around for some more powerful content. That reminded me of this interview, and I know you're gonna love it.

So I started Rise because I needed civil rights. After I was raped at Harvard, I discovered a broken criminal justice system. So, like so many other survivors do, to be quite honest, and in my particular case in Massachusetts, before the laws I wrote passed there, rape kits, which are the evidence that's collected in a rape. Rape kits could be destroyed at six months, even if the statute of limitations for Prosecuting rape is 15 years.

So wait, so you could deal with rape and then go get a rape kit used on you to collect the evidence?

That's correct.

And then what you're saying is after six months, they could destroy the evidence. That's right.

Without even testing it.

Gotcha. Without testing, they would have it and be like, I wouldn't use this anymore.

Throw it in the trash.

We just don't care.

That's right.

And so the victim would never have the ability to prosecute.

That's right. It's much harder.

It's just he said, she said type of conversation.

That's exactly it. And when I started researching what rights I had, I discovered a patchwork of rights across the United States. So in some states, while they destroy rape kits, other states didn't. And I thought this was very unfair.

Why is that?

Yeah, so we literally have etched above our highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, equality under the law. And that was not happening for rape survivors or sexual violence survivors. Literally, two survivors in two different states had two different sets of rights. And I thought to myself, well, I have a choice here. I can accept the injustice or rewrite the law. One of these things is a lot better than the other. And so I rewrote it.

How does someone rewrite a law?

Yeah, it's actually quite fun.

Get out a piece of paper and a pen and you write it up and you say, hey, I want to pass this.

Yeah, it's actually, you know, you're not so far off from the truth. What a lot of people I wish understood now in today's political climate is that everyone not only has agency, but. But that they have a constitutional right to petition the government. That is in our Constitution, which means that our democracy should be accessible. After all, we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is true that nowadays politics is nearly inaccessible. And what I mean by that is there are profit models in politics of people paying a premium for lobbyists, for consultants, and maybe they'll give you access and connections to politicians, and then maybe they'll yield some results. But if you ask people, how do you actually pass law? Most people won't be able to tell you that, even though it's your right to. And why is that right? And so that's why I created a theory of organizing. It's called Hopeonomics. And it gamifies the process of passing a law and then adds a diplomacy theory to it. So over the past 21 months, I'm so proud of my team. We've passed 21 laws, all unanimously, and it impacts at least 40 million people.

Wow.

Yeah.

So 21 laws would be the same law in 21 states.

That's correct. So some of these laws are bifurcated. So it's not in 21 states. One is a federal law, another is an international law, and the rest are state laws. They're all called Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights. And in this Bill of Rights, I actually, Senator Grassley had asked to name the law after me, and I said no. The reason why is because I remember walking into my local area rape crisis center and the waiting room was filled.

Wow.

And I didn't realize how ubiquitous this issue was. You know, I had cared about this issue before, had no idea how broken the system was and how many lives it impacted and impacts, until I walked into that room and became a survivor myself.

Wow. Where was this room? In D.C. or in Boston?

It was Boston.

So we went in. There's an actual facility that's right around Rape survivors Facility.

Yes. Rape crisis centers.

Really?

Yeah. So all across the United States, there are local nonprofits that work on direct services, helping process rape survivors to have access to counseling. Here's the problem, though. Not all states, not all. Well, not all cities have them. And so I'm very lucky that in Boston they had one. But I walked in and it was filled. And I realized at that moment, it was a critical catalyst moment for me, that one, my story was not mine alone, and that if I was having this much difficulty accessing simple information about what I am supposed to do after my rape. And I was at Harvard, and my professor at the law school was my attorney, one of the best attorneys in the nation on this. What is other people? What is everybody else doing that doesn't have the access to resources that I have? And that was a huge problem. When I was thinking about where to move from here after my rape, I called different attorneys and they had told me, look, rape cases on average take a couple years.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, that's right.

It's almost like it's. You don't Forget about it. But it's like time has passed so much that I don't want to rehash these emotions. It's a very emotional experience.

Absolutely.

Do I want to go to court within two years and try to fight this?

That's right.

I try to move on with my life.

Yeah, exactly. So many people choose to do that, and there's no right or wrong answer. But what they presented to me at that time, a senior at Harvard about to graduate, and I had a career opportunity that I really wanted to pursue, was a choice. And that choice was your career or your justice, one or the other. And that is not a choice that anyone should be ever forced to make.

Why did you have to make a choice? Essentially because you got to spend a.

Lot of time in court or both. So the job opportunity I was offered was to be a presidential appointee in the Barack Obama's administration. And I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to serve my country in this way. And he only had two years left. And if my rape trial was going to take two years, which means that I had to come and appear in court in Massachusetts away from D.C. that was going to affect my chances and my job performance. But here's the thing. That's why there are long statute of limitations or no statute of limitations at all for the crime of rape. Because society has recognized that this crime affects survivors and is trying to give survivors an opportunity to add a moment in their lives when they're ready come back. And so I chose my career because Massachusetts has 15 years for me to come back.

Really?

Yes. And so, wow. That's when the six month snag hit for my rape kit. Because I chose my career, I went to D.C. but then you did the kit. Yes, that's right. And I found out that at six months it would be destroyed and I would have to come back to Massachusetts and fight to hold onto my evidence. So here's the double standard, right? The double standard is that convicted rapists in Massachusetts have the right to hold on to the evidence for the duration of their conviction. And then on top of that, class A felony, other class A female felony crimes like murder, never has the evidence destroyed. And so, by the way, it makes no sense for anyone in the party. So one of our biggest champions in Massachusetts was the former executive director of the Innocence Project. Having evidence can exonerate the accused. And then evidence and standard operating procedures helps law enforcement be able to find the truth. And so the Survivor Bill of Rights shorthand is a collection of laws that had already passed around the United States that had legal precedents and that worked to better the criminal justice system for all parties at play. So the things that it includes are the right to hold on to the evidence and not have it be destroyed before the statute of limitations.

Super basic, 15 years.

So it depends on every single state, because every single state has their own rules. Yeah. But it's supposed to match up to the statute of limitations.

Wow.

So another right is the right to not have to pay for your rape kit. So in some states, survivors are still getting charged for it. Can cost up to $2,000.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Imagine if. Oh, and they have creditors calling them if. If they can't afford to pay it.

Oh, my goodness.

But if your car was stolen. Right. You would not have to pay for the police to come to your home, like the gas tank, you know, for the police to come and collect evidence or. So why do you have to do that? In the case of rape, it creates this social, economic barrier that disincentivizes survivors from coming forth. And many survivors don't report their rape, rape or sexual violence for many reasons. One of them being that they don't trust the criminal justice system, which is not an unfounded or just shame or.

Guilt or insecurity or fear or whatever. Another reason people are sexually assaulted every year in the U.S. yeah.

So there are a ton of statistics on this, but the one we quote a lot is that there are 25, at least 25 million rapes of.

In the United States.

25 million survivors total. Not yearly.

That's correct. And what that means is that's the entire population of Texas. Yeah, it's a lot of people. And after the MeToo movement. Right. We now know that everyone in our lives, we know at least somebody who has been affected by this. You know, rape and sexual violence unfortunately affects all people of all walks of life. So another right that's in the survivor Bill of Rights is the right to be notified of your rights. Very basic. It's kind of like a Miranda rights. But because there are such different resources that vary drastically from not only state to state, but county to county, in moments of trauma, it's really important for survivors to get access to information and quickly. So that's one of the other rights. And the right to have a copy of your police report. That sounds so basic. But survivors are getting denied it. And so we put together these basic set of rights and aimed to pass it in the United States Congress. And when we first started out, we were a group of 20 something year olds with no money, no connections, no power, and people, People thought we were a joke. And we just kept relentlessly organizing using, putting our heads together.

Did you use GoFundMe? Is that what you used?

Oh, definitely. Yeah, we actually did that.

How much did you raise on there?

On the original days, I think we raised like 20,000. Yeah. Now we're at 2 million. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second.

So what's the 2 million used for right now?

Yeah. So we ended up passing the bill in Congress, but not only did we pass it in a gridlocked Congress where nothing passed, we passed it unanimously and in seven months. So we hold the record in the past decade for the most efficient legislative reform movement in U.S. history because both.

Parties are on board.

That's right.

Everyone understands this.

Louis became the 21st bill in modern US history to pass unanimously on an on the record vote in Congress. An on the record vote means that senators had to come in person and cast their vote.

Wow.

Yeah, they did that. That's right. Jeff Sessions and Elizabeth Warren stood together for this, and they had never done that, and they never will do that again.

So how do you pass a bill? Yeah, I mean, how does the process even work?

Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that question.

As a 20 something with no money.

Fundamentally, I want people to know that the most powerful tool we all have is our voice and that these institutions, these hallowed institutions of Congress may seem scary, but it is our constitutional right to go and, and talk to these politicians because they serve the people. They're supposed to serve us.

So you can just show up and take a meeting essentially whenever you want. That's correct with anyone in Congress.

So obviously it's helpful to have an appointment. But technically, constitutionally, you are supposed to be able to access your representative or your senator, both, not only in their DC Office, but in their home office as well. You're a constituent, you have that right. But here's how to hack Congress, right? Here's how to pass a law. So this is the part most people don't understand. It's my pet peeve when people say, call your member of Congress because they don't really work.

They're not picking up. It's an answer machine, probably, right?

That's right. So in order to game the system, you need to understand the rules of the system. Let me tell you those rules. When a bill is introduced, it gets assigned to a committee. Most civil rights bills are assigned to the Judiciary Committee. So right now in Congress, Senator Lindsey Graham Is the chairman of the Judiciary, what this means, and this is a very powerful position, is that the chairman or chairwoman has agenda making authority. This is very, very important. Agenda making authority. Just like it sounds. That person is the sole person in the entire Congress who can set the agenda for bills to be voted on. So bills, most bills die because they don't make it on the agenda.

Interesting.

Yes.

So you can call the senator as much as you want.

Right. But it doesn't matter unless they are the chairperson of that committee and they are going to set the agenda.

How does a bill get introduced?

Yeah, it's a great question too.

So again, you just take out a piece of paper pan, you say, here, I want to introduce this to you.

So a member of Congress has to introduce it. But just like you said, the way that we were able to pass our laws so efficiently is because we did that work.

You did it. And so here it is.

That's correct.

It's all written up for you. Just sign off on it and then move it forward.

Yeah, yeah. So look, members of Congress are very busy, let's put it that way. Give them the benefit of the doubt. They're very busy. They have many things to do. If you have a good idea and you're able to convince them, two things. One, that it's the morally right thing to do, and two, it's the politically strategic thing for them to do, it.

Makes them look good.

Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I'm very cognizant of is activism fatigue. A lot of people wake up and there are so many burning trash cans everywhere and people are like, okay, how.

Do I want to be supported with?

That's right.

Shared on social media and donations and vote for this and march for this, it's like, how?

What do you do?

So many things you can care about.

That's right.

In a day when you have your own issues and your own problems too.

And what most people want to see is a return on investment of their energy, what I mean by that is, okay, if I'm going to march, what is that going to result in? Right.

Is there going to be a result? Yeah. Or is it a wasted day?

Exactly.

A good photo and a sign that I get to share out.

Exactly. Right. And it's more, activism and social movements are more than just a fashion trend.

Right.

And so for us, that's why I gamified the process of passing along. But more specifically, I think there's a difference between activism and organizing. So activism to me is straight voltage and organizing Is directed energy. We need both. But in order for social movements to sustain, activism is necessary. Anger can fuel movements, but it cannot sustain movements. Hope does that.

Can anger pass a law?

I think it can pass a law.

Or make a change. Make a change.

I think it certainly can, but it cannot sustain it for decades. Right. Anger is inherently, to me, a surface emotion. For me, anger comes from somewhere, you're hurt. Whatever it is that's underlying that emotion is fueling that anger. And it's not a lasting emotion. I mean, this is even. That's correct. Right. So what happens after you flame out? You know, how can you sustain the change that you're trying to make? And that's where hope comes in. To me. There's a difference between a hope and a dream. Dreams are things that you think about. They're nice to have, but in order to have hope, you have to have a plan to get there from point A to point B. And here's where it comes back to gamification. Games have a couple different aspects to them. Good games have very clear objective, a finish line. They have skills, a next level. That's correct. They have skills building. So you're never given more than you can handle. They have constant feedback loops. So you know, you're playing your plus one life, plus one strength, you know, and then they have community. And so I took those aspects and I applied it to lawmaking. So when an organizer, we call them a riser, joins the game, they are never given more than they can handle.

So it's an easy first step.

That's correct, yes. The first step is that they write what it is that brought them to the table. Why are they there? And along the way, a couple levels down, they transform that into talking to a member of Congress, and then they transform that to testifying in front of the Senate. And then they transform. Transform that to passing through the chamber and then repeating on the next chamber and then getting it to the governor's desk. Right. So these levels make it bite. Sizable and accessible people, especially again, in this time of frustration and time of waning faith in our democracy, just want to know that they have agency. And what we are providing with hopeonomics and at rise is a roadmap to that there's never been a better or more vital moment in our history for everyday people to understand that they hold the power. And that's what hopeonomics is about.

Wow. Amazing. It's incredible.

Yeah.

We can go back to passing a law, too. I can go through that step.

Yeah. What's the Steps to passing a law. Like if I feel like something is unjust and I want to make a.

Change, how do you do that?

Realistically? Can I make that change through passing a law? How long will it take and what are those steps?

Yeah, well, take it from someone who's done it 21 times. You can absolutely do that. Right. So going back to agenda making authority, we're gonna get wonky for a second. So there are a couple stages to passing a law. First, the bill needs to be introduced into a committee. Then that bill needs to be put put onto the agenda to be voted out of that committee. If it passes the committee, then it goes to the floor of a chamber. Now Congress has both the House and the Senate. Let's say that this is the Senate. So it passes out of the Senate committee, goes to the floor of the Senate chamber, Then the head of the Senate needs to put it up for a vote. Agenda making authority is super, super important. Important here. If it is on the agenda and it gets a vote and it passes, then it does and repeats the process on the House. Right? So the process again, introduce a bill to committee. The committee needs to put it onto the agenda to get it to be voted on. Then it goes through the floor of a chamber. Say it's the Senate, Senate floor, and then it repeats its process on the House side. Now integral in this is the catalyst points. If you look at the process, right, the rules, there are only four people in the entire United States Congress who are decision makers.

Really.

Those people are the people who hold the authority to set the agenda. Right.

So you need to meet one of those people to get on the agenda.

That's correct. There are 535 members of Congress. And that's why I say it's really important to understand the rules. And in order to hack the system, you don't need to go to all these other people, go to the people who make the decision. In today's world, we have platforms that have democratized our voices, social media, but also you can Google literally the emails of everyone because they work for you.

Right.

These are public servants.

Their phone numbers are online, their emails.

They are set up a meeting. It is your right to do so.

What if the meeting, what if they say, oh, we're busy for the next.

Six months, Keep on doing it.

Really? Yeah.

And show up, Just show up at the door. Yeah. So I'll talk about showing up in Massachusetts. I was told the day before the Massachusetts legislative cycle was going to end that the speaker was not going to bring up my bill and that it was going to die. And I was already in the airport, like about to board this plane to go from D.C. to Boston. And I went into the bathroom and I cried because I was just like, well, why would I go and watch my own civil rights get slaughtered? And it was other rape survivors who called me and said, just be present in that situation. Make sure that you stand at the door and let each one of these representatives, as they walk out, see your face. And I was the last person on that plane. And for the next day, when I got there, even our lead sponsors, the lead senators and representatives who worked on this bill said, I'm so sorry, it's not going to pass this time. And for the next 14 hours, the rise team and I literally just walked into the decision makers offices and said, I'm here. Here's why I care about this issue. Respectfully, please listen to our stories. We asked people to call into the Speaker's office. I witnessed those calls come in in person. And at the end of those 14 hours, he brought it up for a vote and it passed unanimously.

Wow. Why would they not pass something like this? That's beneficial to all.

That's right.

Right. The most common doesn't hurt a party. It doesn't like.

Yeah, that's right. Makes them look really good too.

Right. Why would they say, ah, we're just not gonna pass this?

Politics is not about logic or facts. It was. We have a very different climate now. It's all about emotion. Right. And at the end of the day, when you talking to these people is about convincing them to care and prioritize. Politicians get like a. It's like drinking from a fire hydrant. They have so many people coming at them all the time, talking about all the different issues. So how do you rise above that and make the case that they should do this too? To be very honest with you, this is very sad reality, but it's true. The way that we have done this is by empathy building, but also specifically bringing in celebrities. Yeah, the shiny will. Yeah. I'm so grateful for Terry.

So they'll listen to a celebrity.

That's right. Right. It's press or celebrity, really.

Yeah, they'll listen to it because it's like more tension. So now they have heat on them.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So I had already passed the federal law, the sexual assault survivor bill of Rights, through the United States Congress when I asked Harry to come and testify with me in the United States Senate. And the reason why I asked him to do that anyways is because even if the federal law passed because of states rights and federalism, most rape cases are adjudicated in state courts. So the Federal law impacts 25 million people. However, we still need to pass these rights state by state. And state legislation is not as flashy or as people just don't look at it as much as federal laws. And so the United States Senate held a hearing to help us amplify. If I just tested it would not have had the type of world trending impact that Terry Crews came and testified on. And Terry lent his platform in order for us to do so. And it directly resulted in laws getting passed.

Wow. So one person being up there made a huge difference.

Immense difference. Yeah, immense. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm very grateful to him. And he serves as an example of someone being able to tell their story and use it for good.

Yeah. And then it was like Gillette commercial had it in there and everything else it did so you could spread it even more. It's amazing. So you've been on, you went on to raise $20 million now from the.

Oh no, 2 million.

2 million. Why did I say 20 million? 2 million started, 20,000 now, 2 million over the last four years, Delta spent. And what is how you've been able to do that? Raise that much money?

That is absolutely a mental game if I have to say. Like I grew up with an immigrant family. My parents were boat refugees from Vietnam. I remember I had a meeting with a high net worth individual and it wasn't even that person, it was like their person's gatekeeper. And I had calculated, okay, we need $16,000 in order to make it, to like survive, you know, for another month or something like that. And I asked him that and I'll never forget his response. He said to me, I'm offended by your request. $16,000 is chump change to me. And I was just like, I'd not have $16,000 in my life. Like what? And it was at that moment that I realized my horizons just expanded to understand how much capital there is out there and that if you want something and if you believe in these rights, then you need to ask for it. You need to ask really confidently for it. Look, presidential candidates right now are raising multi millions based on the promise of them maybe making it, maybe making it and maybe enacting change. And guess what? At rise, We've already passed 21 laws for 40 million people. We hold the track record for being again America's most successful legislative reform movement. And do I Believe in these rights? Yes. Do they require capital in order to make sure that our team has the resources to accomplish their goal? Yes. And if ex presidential candidate can raise ideas for the promise of their idea, then I can raise millions of dollars for actual track records.

What's the biggest fear you have personally?

That's a great question. I think the hardest thing, I think there's like two types. There's a professional one and a personal one.

Personal?

Yeah.

So speak to the heart in your personal life.

I think the hardest thing anyone can do is learn to love themselves fully and authentically.

Have you done that yet?

Yeah. I really do love myself.

That's good.

But it's a struggle. I don't love myself every day and I certainly did start off with that. Especially for individuals who are part of marginalized communities and have identities. Marginalized identities are compounded. Society tells you to be a certain way. Of course it's hard to love yourself. That is the greatest challenge that we do when we wake up every single day, which is how do we live our God given potential and be happy with who we are and thrive and contribute to our own lives and whatever vision it is that we're trying to create. Yeah. And it's so, so hard.

How do you practice self love?

It's every day. I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in work life integration. So what I mean by that is I deliberately create choices in my career and in my personal life that spark Joy Marie Kondoing my life. But you know, in activism, especially for organizers and activists who work on issues that come from their own personal trauma, there is incredible danger of, of performative trauma. What I mean by that is a lot of even, let's say sexual violence survivors, when they go speak on an issue, are expected to talk about the most gruesome details of their rape. And it's kind of a voyeuristic experience for the person who is. Oh, that's so terrible. When I created Rise, it was deliberately named Rise to recognize that you're coming from a place but going up. And I structured and architected this social movement to have an outlet. So it is a journey. People are moving somewhere. And for my personal experience, I found my own form of justice by being able to pen my own civil rights into existence and help other people do that too. Yeah. And that's the next phase of Rise, actually. So over the past eight months, we launched an accelerator for social movements. So in cities across America, any social movement. That's correct. So in cities across America, tech Entrepreneurs can apply apply to umbrella organizations. And when an entrepreneur has a good idea based on the merit of their idea, they can get seed funding or mentorship. That doesn't exist for civil rights until now. Over the past 21 laws, we've amassed an honest broker reputation between all political parties. And we are using those resources and that knowledge and the roadmap to train the next generation of change makers. So if actors or organizers have an idea about how to change a law specifically and are relentlessly committed to doing so, they have a lot of grit they can apply. And if they get accepted, we will cover their opportunity cost to start up their social movement.

Interesting.

So we pay those people seed funding and give them mentors, coaches, the tools.

And how to pass these laws.

Yeah. Our mission is to help everyday people pass their first law. Wow.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What's a law that needs to be passed?

There are so many.

Really?

Yes. But the first incubation that we've done are with the survivors and friends of the Parkland shooting. So eight months ago, their founder, Robert Shentrup, came to me and described a meeting that he had had with a senator where that senator said, you know, I want to work on these issues, but I don't think I can because I'd lose my seat in the primary. And instead of being mad, Robert, who lost his sister Carmen Shantrup in the shooting, by the way, Robert turned to me and said, I don't care. I just want to make it safe for this guy to vote yes so that I don't lose my other sister to gun violence. And that is what it takes, an understanding of the system and grit and compromise. And so Robert and a group of incredible young people started this organization called Zero USA for Zero Gun Deaths in America. They have been full time at Rise for the past eight months and have gone through the Hopeonomics training, and they are currently in 15 states now. Robert met with President Trump in the Oval Office and met with Democratic House leadership. And last month he testified in the Colorado State House on a bill that they support. That bill passed and it's on its way to the COVID status.

Wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool. How does someone detach the emotional anger from the pain they feel, the injustice that's happened to them, or they see from someone else that they care about or they're in their community. How do they build a movement so that an idea gets passed without this emotional charge? Because you said that, you know, Congress making a decision is like an emotional feeling. But I don't think you can do it if you're just like this emotional person crying and screaming and shouting and pouting all day long. Like, it's not going to get a message across.

Absolutely.

So how does someone who's been through this trauma or pain get a message across? With passion, but not this crazy emotional energy.

That is perhaps one of the toughest skills we teach at rise.

Because I see these activists online that are just screaming and I'm like, you're not getting a message across to me. And I'm not even the person you're trying to convince here, right?

It's like, absolutely.

The people passing these laws, they're just going to block that off. They say, you're exhausting me.

That's absolutely true. So the biggest critique that we get is that we are not radical enough. And I own that criticism. For me, I did not radical.

So you pass laws, though, without being radical.

So I did not have the political luxury of a cathartic performance. I had urgency. My rape kit had a literal timeline to be destroyed. And what that means is that every six months it was counting down to this Kafkaesque game where my justice would be literally thrown in the trash. And I needed to work with anyone and everyone within the legislative process in order to pass these laws that profoundly shaped the way that I negotiated my rights. So here's where the national security side, the diplomacy side of hopeonomics comes in. In just any relationship, even in our personal relationships, the closer that relationship is, is the more it can be distorted, right? Maybe you're having an argument with your girlfriend and you yell over something so small, right? Would you have done that with a stranger? In international relations, in national security, let's say we are negotiating with a dictator on nuclear disarmament. Maybe that dictator has. Has a lot of other issues that they need to get better on. But for that moment when you're at the table, you're only working on nuclear disarmament and you're trying to move that ball forward on that one issue, right? Being able to keep your eye on the ball and focus on that and not only detach yourself, you're not forgetting all the other things that you're doing, but you are putting that at the door when you walk in because you have a very specific goal and trying to make that change. Right? That set of skills is really important when it comes to domestic policy, and it's often forgotten. So just like in personal relationships, when things are distorted, citizens of a country may have a sort of different relationship with the Types of skills and tools and tactics that they use in demanding their rights from their senators. It doesn't mean don't demand them. Right. Again, activism, organizing, both are necessary. But if you want to pass laws.

If you want to get results.

That's right. Democracy inherently requires its citizens to hash things out. And so when survivors at Rise, or any organizer enters a room of a senator, they leave their political tribalism at the door.

What does that mean?

You know, we are in such a partisan time where when you turn on the tv, all we hear are reduced sound bites for retweets. People are just trying to get at each other. It's theater. We don't really hear steadfast policy making. And our government can't even keep itself open. And in the meantime, people suffer. Right. And so political tribalism saying, I am right, my party is right, and your party is wrong and just trying to tear each other down. That can get money for political fundraisers because you're literally rooting for your team. That's what it is. But legislation, true lawmaking, and one that helps people, demands that we sit each other. We sit down and we sit in these uncomfortable spaces. We climb over these empathy walls and really engage with the other side. That's really hard to do, but that's what we train our organizers to do.

Yeah.

Amazing. So what's next, then? What are you most excited about?

Every day I wake up and the two burning questions I have are, what is my place in the universe? And what am I going to do about it? I think both civil rights and astrophysics answers that question. But in terms of the civil rights work, this blueprint that we're creating together at Rise is meant to help other people be able to pen their own soul rights into existence and success. To me, looks like I'm not needed anymore, because first of all, I want to go to space. I did this out of necessity. And the choices that I've made in creating the social movement was not in building a career out of it or not in putting my identity around it, but what is the fastest exit for me and most efficient way for me to get rights and then also empower other people to get rights? Because that was a response that we received after President Obama signed our law. And how can I create modes of thinking that are accessible to bring democracy back to be into the hands of the people and then go to space? Yeah. Yeah. So every day I wake up and I still believe that I have agency to change the world around me. And I'm so grateful for that. Not only for my own agency, but the agency to have other people have that empowerment too.

That's amazing. How can people get involved or follow the movement or if they want to launch their own campaign, what can they do?

Everyone can go to Risenow us and apply. So if you have an idea that you want to enact to change the world, specifically a way, a law that you want to write, you can go and find the application. And if folks want to join other campaigns, that's also available too. So you can volunteer your time. Here's the remarkable part about our first couple of laws. We did this in our spare time, so I ended up choosing my career. I served in the Obama administration and on the side did rise.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Thank you.

So it didn't have to be this full time thing of activism all day long screaming and marching and no, there's.

Another way and that way smarter way. There is a way to pass laws in an efficient manner that brings back civility, to be honest.

Humanity.

Yeah, yeah. That's at the core of what we do. It's recognizing and sometimes it's very hard to the humanity and everyone. One of the ways that we were able to coalition build is by bringing unlikely, unsavory allies to the table and saying, look, this is what we want to do and we want to hear you out too. Most people, again, it's on an emotional level with other people. Everyone don't want to be left out. And the issue of sexual violence, as a lot of other contentious issues doesn't boil down to facts. If it was then we wouldn't have been litigating so many different flashpoints within our culture in recent memory, from Supreme Court justices to presidential elections, whatever you turn on the tv. But the idea here is to have people remember that no one is powerless when we come together.

Wow. What happens now with those who are convicted of rape? What happens like with the laws? What is the crime sentence that really.

Varies from state to state?

Really?

It really, really varies. And it really varies depending on the judge as well. And so that's a whole other arena of reform waiting to happen.

Because it's still kind of like a game of like, well, this is what he said, she said. She said. He said, yeah, unless there's like video evidence maybe, or a rape case or rape kit.

Yeah.

So again, even a rape kit, someone could say, well, this was consensual. This person wanted it. They said yes. They said, you know, I don't know, I'm just making this Up.

No, no, no, no.

Totally. So it's all about like, you know, it can be very traumatic for the man as well if he was like, well, I didn't think this was rape.

Yeah. We are certainly entering into an era where people are being. People are having dialogue on this. What constitutes consent and what constitutes. And what are the ramifications for non consensual.

And when do they teach you this? You know, when are you taught the rules, the laws? You know, there's like a moral rule and then there's like an actual law.

Yeah.

And when is anyone ever taught this?

Exactly. I think that's an incredibly important conversation to be had right now. The laws that I've written don't even go there. It is literally the first step in reforming a broken criminal justice system at the very start. So there's so much work that's to be done. And one of them starts by recognizing that when we come to the table, everyone needs to have an understanding of. And people don't have an understanding now because we haven't had this conversation before. Yeah. That even extends internationally as well. Right. So one of the campaigns that we're doing at Rise is a universal survivor Bill of Rights where we are asking governments to recognize the humanity in all survivors. You know, the United Nations General assembly has never passed a resolution that has solely focused on survivors of sexual violence. Rape has always been a subcategory of another issue. And rape happens outside of war. Peace is not the absence of visible conflict. In order for there to be true peace, survivors need to have the opportunity to access justice. And so our universal bill of rights seeks to have governments recognize the full dignity of survivors and have the priority of having criminal justice systems there to be able to be of service for survivors.

Yeah, I mean, it's such a big issue. I think the stat that I've heard is one in four women have been sexually abused and one in six men.

That's right.

It's just like it's such a big issue that there's two parts. There's the healing part of it for the victim. It's like how to heal and forgive or move on or whatever you need to do to heal. And then there's the legal part. It's like, how do you process this legally so this doesn't happen again or this person is brought to justice. So there's kind of two different issues.

Yeah, it is two different issues.

How do we teach this in the world so that we have know better humanity and how do we move forward these laws so it's amazing what you're doing, and it's really inspiring. Did I read that you were nominated for Nobel Peace Prize? Someone nominated you? How does that even work? When will you know if you get it?

So I will know. October.

Let's go. Come on.

Thank you.

Get it. Make it happen. Is this just one person a year? I'm ignorant to this. Like, how many people can know nominated. How many people win in a year?

So it's actually categories. A secret. How many people are nominated? Or rather, who gets nominated? They keep it. The Nobel Prize.

I left the secret out. Sorry.

No, it's okay. This one. My nominators specifically issued a public letter to let the world know that they nominated me specifically because they wanted to uplift the work on the international level that we were doing. And I'm so grateful to my nominators. I actually had the immense honor of attending thanks to the invitation of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. The Nobel Prize ceremony last year.

Wow.

What was that, like, Oslo? It is literally the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Wow.

I don't want a wedding ceremony. I want a Nobel Peace Party ceremony. Oh, my goodness. I mean, the. It was so wholesome. It was magical. And the. The prize is for goodness. It's for humanity.

Yeah. Lifting people up.

That's right. And it was history. And to be able to witness Nadia and Dennis, the two who won last year, who are in my field, by the way, they're both sexual violence activists.

Wow.

Yes. Was such an immense honor.

Yeah.

So the room holds about maybe 200 to 300 people.

Small.

Yeah. And the royal family comes, and there's this whole procession.

The past winners come. Probably some of the past.

Actually, they don't. So it's actually. And nominees don't get to go either. So it was really special that the committee extended this invitation to me, and it was because I work in the field. So it depends. Every year, it's based on the committee and how much they. Who they want to award. So this past year, there were two people that are awarded, and so the invitees are split between them. Nadia is a member of the Yazidi community, and Dennis is from the drc Congo. And so, I mean, the pride, the immense pride, deservedly so, of these two communities. Just when they spoke, I mean, these flags were flying, people were crying. I mean, I wish it was a bigger thing in America because it really is based on a shared belief in our common humanity. It was so delightful. Yeah. It just makes you remember maybe everything's gonna be okay. Yeah. It also shows the ripple effects of what we're able to do together.

Yeah. How one person can make a huge ripple. Starting an idea, starting a move. Movement.

Yeah.

Planting a seed.

Yeah. And speaking up.

That's it. What makes you feel the most loved?

Oh, that's a great question. I'm so lucky to feel that love. But it hasn't always been that way. So when I first started advocating for my rights, the first time was in the Massachusetts State House. It was six hours of me telling politicians who just straight up did not care. I remember one of them being like, oh, my constituents just don't know me for this, but I'm sympathetic. Or somebody else would be like, oh, I have a campaign to run. I don't know how well this would go. And I was like, thanks for your brutal honesty. But also, I watched these politicians debate the feasibility of my own human rights in front of my face. And I went home and I cried. I was just like, I just need one person to tell me that they love me. I'm a pathological optimist. It is sort of required to be an astronaut. Certainly required to be an activist.

Exactly.

So the next day, I got up and I did the same thing, this time to the United States Senate. And I got into my lunch break because I was working, and I got into this Uber ride where the driver was this kind of stoic, intimidating guy. He didn't really talk to me, but as we were going to the Senate, he saw that I was going there, and he asked me why. And so I told him. And this once intimidating man just started. Just started tearing up. And he turned to me and he said, my daughter is a rape survivor. And what you went through, she went through, too. And when he stopped the car, he said, can I shake your hand? Thank you so much for fighting for my daughter. Has anyone told you that they love you? Today? I love you. And I'll never forget that, dad. So one of the greatest things that I tell people is when you're doing this work, it's not in isolation. Even though you may feel lonely, the change that you're creating in that vision impacts more than directly the people you're trying to help. It impacts their loved ones as well. There's so much love out there.

Yeah. Well, you feel it then, right?

Yeah.

That's good. This is a question I asked at the end. It's called the three Truths. So I want you to imagine a far time away, that it's your last day on Earth, and you can live as long as you want to live. Maybe you've extended your life to 300 years because you've got some crazy astronaut space stuff that you've added to your life or something. Yeah, but it's the last day and you've got to. It's been a beautiful life. You've achieved everything you want. You passed every bill that you could possibly think of. You've moved humanity forward. You've got the family of your dreams, everything. But you got to turn the lights off and you have to take everything with you. So all of your work has to go with you. Your message, your writings, your books, your videos, your audio. It's all going to come with you, your message. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about everything you've learned in life. These would be the three lessons, or what I like to call three truths that you would just share with the world. What would you say are yours?

All right, my first one is that no one is invisible when we demand to be seen. My second one is, I said this earlier, no one is powerless when we come together. The third one requires a little bit of explaining, a little bit of space nerd dumb. So when astronauts go to space for the first time, many of them experience the same thing called the overview effect. It's a psychological cognitive shift that happens and it's seeing every living being that's ever lived or died on a pale blue dot.

Crazy.

And what it does is it inspires awe in the full definition of awe, like fear, but also amazingness. People who go to space and compact say that we are all in this spaceship Earth together. Why are we fighting over such trivial things? You can't see man made borders in space. What you can see is that we are all one humanity. So the last thing that I would hope to leave behind is this idea that we are one and that our brother and sisters across the world are all in this together. So the overview effect, I love that.

Well, I want to acknowledge you, Amanda, for your courage to take action. Because this is not an easy thing to do, you know, to take action when you were going through an emotionally challenge, probably the hardest challenging time emotionally for yourself. And to say, I want to stand up for myself and try to make changes, do this just after graduating college, figuring it out on your free time. I mean, it's really inspiring. So I acknowledge you for sticking it out and making an impact and getting results. Because most people have lots of money and they try to make a change, they can't do it. And you're showing us that we can if we're just willing to stick it out and come from a place of it sounds like compassion. You know, of course you have a lot of pain and anger and frustration, but you learned how to emotionally shift and get results. That's a great example of what's possible for anyone. So I acknowledge you for everything you're doing for helping people that want to make a change as well. Where can we follow you personally?

Instagram is where I update most of my life. And so you can find me. My full name is Amanda Ngo.

That's my handle.

And then on Twitter, my last name is NG U Y E N. Amanda.

Okay. And the website is Risen.

Risenow Us.

Risenow Us. This is the last question, and it's what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, that's a good one. Why did I anticipate that question? It's to love who you are. Yeah. Because that. That definition can change based on each individual and based on every generation. It's up to every generation to define for itself. So ultimately, it's to love who you.

Are no matter when. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

I said that in the New York Times. You know what I mean? The most recently, and I had so.

Much shame about that article coming out.

I was like, oh, my God.

But it was but freedom, though.

But then after being so. Rather than just saying, oh, I have.

Childhood trauma, I have been sexually abused.

Like, saying that releases that.