Overview
Content warning: This article contains descriptions of or allusions to rape and sexual abuse.
This is an op-ed by Farrah Khan, a consent educator, gender justice advocate for sexual assault survivors and survivor herself.
By now, you’ve probably seen the headlines. It’s the most talked-about court case in the world: About a week after a fraternity party at Cornell in October 2024, Jane Doe was scrolling an anonymous online forum about Greek life when she came across a post about a sophomore who had been allegedly gang-raped at the Chi Phi house. She was that sophomore. Until then, she had only heard rumors going around campus that she was a slut. She later told investigators, after filing a complaint last month in a New York court, that reading that post was the first time her experience was validated and “the narrative change[d] that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted.” Those words come from records of Cornell’s Title IX investigation, reported by The New York Times, following the diligent reporting by student journalists Cereese Qusba and Sophia Dasser, who broke the story. Jane Doe went on to report the assault and sue the university. Prosecutors have reopened the case and say they will take it to a grand jury. Lawyers for at least three of the men deny any wrongdoing. The case has sparked a global discussion on sexual assault, campus safety, fraternity culture, and the frustrations survivors feel in the face of institutions that fail them.
Stories like Jane Doe’s will keep emerging. What the conversation has been missing is how we respond when, like her, someone in our lives discloses their assault, and to every survivor who sees themselves in her story.
When I read about Jane Doe and the Cornell 7, a painful buzz began pulsing in my chest. My hands grew clammy. My breath got caught in my throat. I know intimately how easy it is to internalize shame. I felt the same shame when it happened to me.
In my first year of university, a group of us went to a friend’s cottage. It was me, a close girlfriend, her boyfriend, and the guy whose cottage it was, someone I’d known for years. I thought I could trust him. We all drank Blue Curaçao the first night and then crashed in our separate bedrooms. In the middle of the night, I woke up with him on top of me. I asked, “What are we doing?” as if I had some control over what he had chosen to do to me.
When I pushed him off, he slurred, “You’re always open. Slut.” I froze on the bed while he twisted the sheets around his body and passed out. The dread of self-blame kept me in that bed all night. I believed him. It was easier than facing the fact that someone I was friends with would do that.
The next morning, I pulled my girlfriend into the bathroom and told her what had happened. The first thing she said was, “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you? It’s going to ruin the trip.” I got really small then and spent the weekend doing what everyone else was: I pretended it never happened. I kept thinking, maybe it was me. It wasn’t a big deal. I shouldn’t have talked about it like that. I shouldn’t have had a drink. I shouldn’t have worn a tank top and shorts.
The smell of Blue Curaçao will forever make me gag.
This wasn’t my first time being subjected to sexual assault; like most women I know, it isn’t just one thing. It’s the joke in sixth grade about your body, a family member sitting too close, the guys who yelled vulgar words from their car, the boyfriend or girlfriend who doesn’t stop. It’s cumulative; it wears us all down to know we live in a society that doesn’t prioritize safety, let alone protect us.
Now, I’ve spent more than 20 years on the other side of those conversations. I started as a teenager, writing a zine about how to support a friend who tells you they’ve been harmed. I became a counselor. I ran a sexual assault support center at a university, where I sat with students in the early morning hours after frat parties. I led a national project on gender-based violence on campuses, and was part of the first Gender Equality advisory for the G7, where I was the first survivor to ever address G7 leaders, including the current president. “I speak as a survivor,” I started my address. “I speak as a survivor, and I speak with the survivors who cannot be in this room. And I carry with them the hope that nobody else has to say ‘Me Too.’”
Most students who are sexually assaulted never go to campus resources or to the police, according to the AAU’s 2019 national campus survey. They tell their people — friends, family, co-workers. In reports from schools that shared their results, about four in five women who were assaulted told someone, usually a friend. This isn’t the stranger in the white van, this is someone they know which makes reporting so much harder.
So the first response a survivor gets usually comes from a friend, not a counselor or an investigator. The Cornell survivor’s account of her alleged assault was first affirmed not by the administration at her school but by a stranger online, then by a roommate brave enough to say it.
When I think about that cottage weekend, it isn’t his words; it’s my friend’s that stick in my ribs. How we respond to someone who tells us they have been sexually assaulted is world-building. Every time we respond to a sexual assault disclosure with care, we practice leaving behind a world that tells men they have impunity and women to comply, because there is no place to be safe. Part of my own world-building was reading Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Their words taught me that the burden of sexual violence wasn’t mine to carry. Inspired by them, I created a cut-and-paste zine for survivors called SOAR, with five simple steps to support survivors. Decades later, it became the BRAVE model, which I use in my professional training. It’s broken down into five steps: Begin by Listening (start by listening, and let them know you believe them), Respect (respect their privacy and their choices), Ask (ask what support looks like to them, instead of assuming, Validate (let them know that their feelings make sense and that it wasn’t their fault) and Empathize (your presence matters more than perfect words). More than 100,000 people have since been trained in this model, on campuses and in youth programs, nonprofits, healthcare settings, and government agencies. It started as a peer tool, and it uses plain language on purpose because you don’t need to be an expert to support someone.
“How we respond to someone who tells us they have been sexually assaulted is world-building. Every time we respond to a sexual assault disclosure with care, we practice leaving behind a world that tells men they have impunity.”
Since the Cornell story broke, women and gender diverse people have been posting “I am Jane Doe” and sharing stories — some from last month and some from decades ago. They are doing so to make sure Cornell’s Jane Doe doesn’t get doxxed, and also to be in community with other survivors. But alongside those stories is a flood of victim-blaming. It’s important to remember that survivors in your life are reading these posts.
It’s not just online. Disclosures of sexual assault by survivors are being shared between friends over drinks, with a crush or with a co-worker before a team retreat. That’s part of what happens when a major story of sexual assault breaks: people grieve, remember, and share. This happened when the Hockey Canada story broke, too. And it’s going to keep happening.
Here’s how BRAVE can help you support a survivor.
What do you do if someone tells you they were assaulted? Begin by listening
When the group chat is buzzing, a message might come in privately: “This whole thing is bringing up a lot for me.” If we are not feeling grounded, a panicked response sounds like: “Wait, what happened?? Who was it? Did you report it?” Every question comes from love, but together they put the survivor on the spot. BRAVE is a practice that starts with a breath and a pause.
Listening means noticing who isn’t talking. A screenshot of the Cornell story lands in a group chat. And someone goes quiet. Check in. More than half of women in the U.S. have been subjected to sexual violence involving physical contact, and for more than 80% of women who’ve been raped, this happened to them before they turned 25. On campus, it’s about one in four undergraduate women. Sexual assault should not be the price women have to pay to graduate.
Look at your chat. Count. Even if you’re not a survivor yourself, chances are there is someone in your chat affected by sexual assault. They may be afraid to say anything, not knowing if they can trust anyone with what they are going through.
Sexual harassment or assault doesn’t start in college either. This summer, I led a workshop with a group of high school girls in a small suburb. We collaged together what a future grown with consent would feel like. While gluing torn paper and glitter stars together, we discussed barriers to reporting. One participant said, “It’s too late. Why would I tell anyone? No one believed me when I was a kid.” Then, one by one, every girl in the room said something similar. I wanted to breathe fire. Instead, I found a way to ground myself. Take a breath, squish my toes into the ground and breathe. “This is a lot,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Disclosure is rarely linear. Survivors can tell it sideways at first, as a joke, or recounting a “crazy night” similar to what Jane Doe shared with her roommate. Her roommate’s instincts to listen and reflect on what she heard are part of interrupting harm.
Their assault isn’t grounds for gossip. Respect confidentiality
When my friend at the cottage asked me not to tell anybody, she was asking me to protect her needs. Confidentiality is supposed to protect the survivor’s choice, not everyone else’s comfort.
Survivors get to choose if, when and how they want to share their story. Most college students who are sexually assaulted never report it to their school or the police, according to the AAU. That decision belongs to them. It’s rarely simple. When researchers read through nearly 1,300 #WhyIDidntReport posts from college survivors, the reasons sounded so familiar to me: the blame they’d already turned on themselves, who the person who hurt them was, and how the decision only got harder with time.
When someone tells you, you might feel the urge to tell someone else. But only the survivor decides if, when, and how they want to talk about it.
Details
Let the survivor lead. Ask what support looks like
Support isn’t one-size-fits-all. For some people, it’s seeing a counsellor. Support can look like going to the hospital with a friend to get a forensic kit. It could be a night on the couch watching a TV show or movie with friends. For others, it’s time, because maybe they’re not ready to talk yet. So ask: “What do you need right now? How can I be here for you?” Then let them choose. In one 2025 study, survivors described what they wished people had said, and the researchers took their title from one of them: “I want more personalized support.” And when survivors share online, one of the responses they found most helpful was a private message of support.
One of the key questions I always ask when I start working with a survivor is, “What does justice look like to you?” We have grown up with the belief that rape must be reported. Going to the police isn’t everyone’s vision of justice, especially for marginalized communities that have harmful histories and current realities with the police. Plus, we know that there’s a prevalence of sexual violence committed by police themselves, with studies showing that sexual violence is the second most reported form of police misconduct. Responding by suggesting a survivor goes to the police may not help them feel supported. A better way to show support: ask them what they need. On my podcast, Healing Comes in Waves, I asked a survivor: “What did you do with your anger?” She told me no one had everasked her that. There is no right way to react to being sexually assaulted. Listening gives space for all the feelings.
How do you make sure they know you believe them? Validate their experience
The words that helped me breathe out shame from my body came from my friend, Kimiko, who quietly would tell me, “It’s not your fault,” “Your feelings make sense,” and “You’re not alone.”
Validating a survivor reminds them, and you, that the person responsible for sexual assault is the person who commits it. It doesn’t matter what the survivor drank, wore or texted the next day. The legal parameters around sexual assault are not my guide to understanding this harm. The understanding of this harm comes from my values.
Those words matter so much because survivors are hearing the opposite everywhere. Social media comments are flooded with, “Why was she drinking? Why did she go to his room? Why did she text him?” We heard a version of this recently on The View, when the conversation about Cornell turned to what she drank, what she took and what she’d agreed to earlier that night. Hear those interrogations long enough, and you start believing those excuses yourself. The reality is that consent is ongoing, and you can revoke it at any time. And if you are too intoxicated, you CANNOT give consent. Period. Blaming the survivor just puts the onus back on them as if they are the problem. It makes them question themselves. That’s exactly what happened to me after that conversation with my friend in the bathroom. And it’s not just me. A 2025 study of college women who had been assaulted found that when the people they told turned against them, they blamed themselves more, and that self-blame went hand in hand with more post-traumatic stress.
Shame and blame are what every survivor faces. Shame says, ” Don’t tell anyone.” Blame says, “It was your fault anyway.” I carried both.
Think about the last time someone said something awful to you. You were so stunned, you said nothing. Then, four days later, standing in the shower, you realize how awful it was. That’s what shock does. Now imagine it’s not words, but your body, and you’re afraid for your life. During a sexual assault, many survivors respond the way anyone would to the threat of being killed: we freeze, we go quiet, we do whatever we think will get us out alive. That’s survival. And still, afterward, we blame ourselves for it.
Having a drink, sending a text, wearing a tank top and shorts, or going to someone’s room does not constitute consent, and saying yes to one thing does not mean saying yes to everything that follows. Freezing isn’t consent either; it’s the body trying to survive.
Sexual assault can happen to all genders. We know that Trans and gender non-binary people are targeted for sexual violence at disproportionate rates due in part to the harmful, systemic narratives about them.
Men also face sexual assault. 7% of undergraduate men will be sexually assaulted. They are much more likely to be harmed than to be falsely accused. Stereotypes and assumptions of what it means is part of what silences men from ever talking about it.
“Validating a survivor reminds them, and you, that the person responsible for sexual assault is the person who commits it. It doesn’t matter what the survivor drank, wore or texted the next day.”
Validation belongs to all survivors. Yet we know that Black, brown and Indigenous women — as well as other marginalized survivors — face discrimination within the legal system and in society at large. Days after the Cornell lawsuit, Kendall Francis, a Black first-generation student at LSU, spoke out. She says a football player assaulted her. LSU found him responsible for sexual assault and rape, then reduced his suspension to probation and let him back on the team. She went to the police herself, almost a year later, and says she failed both semesters of her first year. (He hasn’t been charged, and LSU says it followed its due process.) Her school believed her, and she was still left to carry it alone.
We’ve known for a long time that this falls hardest on Black girls and women. Too often, institutions and adults push the narrative onto Black girls that they are less innocent and less in need of protection than white girls, starting as young as five, Georgetown Law researchers found. And for Black women survivors, even milder negative reactions to disclosure have been linked to more PTSD and depression.
You don’t have to say the perfect thing. Just be there and empathize with their experience
Stay with them. Your presence matters more than perfect words. A simple text can do it: “Thank you for telling me. I know it must have been hard. I’m here for you.”
You don’t have to fix anything; staying is enough.
Give yourself grace. Bearing witness to someone’s harm has impacts, too, especially if you’re a survivor yourself. There are great resources like Chayn’s Bloom and MeToo Survivor Santaucy to access.
I think about that moment in the bathroom more than I think about him. What if my friend had seen me? In another world, maybe she would tell me. Maybe she was dealing with her own shame. She isn’t a monster; she is a product of a culture that would rather protect everyone’s peace than a woman’s right to safety.
“I believe you. It’s not your fault. What do you need?” When I think about that weekend years ago, it isn’t him that comes up. I think about my close friend in that bathroom, telling me not to ruin the trip. BRAVE is the conversation I deserved in that bathroom, and the one every survivor deserves.
So take it to the group chat. Check in with your people. You can simply say, “This story is heavy. It’s okay to take a break from the coverage. I’m going to leave the number for RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-HOPE. I know that many of us have gone through things like this, and we deserve care.” Your heart might pound when you hit send. It might feel awkward. Remember that awkward is what practice feels like in the body before it becomes culture. Being brave isn’t a one-time action; it’s continuously choosing to show up for each other.
There is always a survivor in the room, and that may include you. If that’s you, be gentle with yourself. To Jane Doe, survivor at the center of this story, and to the girl I was in that bathroom: I believe you.
If you’ve experienced sexual violence of any kind and need help or support, please visit Rainn or call 800-656-4673.
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