Speaker 1: Just a heads up. This episode deals pretty heavily with
Speaker 1: sexual assault because right now, I my question to the
Speaker 1: Eastern District is how many other sexual assault pieces are
Speaker 1: sitting on your docket that you refuse to bring to trial?
Speaker 1: Why not call a gran jury? But they don't like
Speaker 1: to be asked questions, and I love to ask questions.
Speaker 1: There are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: So well. On the show, we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: how it's often marginalized people who make technology safer for everyone,
Speaker 1: and how it comes at a huge personal cause, but
Speaker 1: too often we do not hear these stories. Last year,
Speaker 1: the ride share app Lift or at least a report
Speaker 1: on the number of people sexually assaulted in ride shairs. Now,
Speaker 1: they didn't just do this out of concern for public safety.
Speaker 1: It was because of pressure generated by survivors. Survivors like
Speaker 1: Allison Turkos, who was suing both Lift and the New
Speaker 1: York Police Department. On October fourteen, seventeen, after a night
Speaker 1: out with friends, Allison hailed a lift to get back
Speaker 1: to her Brooklyn department when she noticed the driver was
Speaker 1: taking her in the wrong direction. She thought maybe he
Speaker 1: was trying to scammer out of twenty or thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: She tried to hop out of the car at a
Speaker 1: red light, but realized the child blocks were on, and
Speaker 1: when the driver pulled out a gun, she realized this
Speaker 1: wasn't just a scam. The lift driver brought her across
Speaker 1: state lines from New York to New Jersey, where he
Speaker 1: held he act gunpoint, raped her, and stood by as
Speaker 1: two other men did too. It was the worst night
Speaker 1: of her life. What was your life like before October
Speaker 1: fourteen two out and seventeen? I always described October fourteen
Speaker 1: m as the before times my best friend Morgan and I.
Speaker 1: That's sort of how we even thinking about us, Like
Speaker 1: I get emotional. Um, we Morgan and I always describe
Speaker 1: it as the before times, particularly because I was with
Speaker 1: her um October, which was the Thursday, and um, there's
Speaker 1: this photo of us at this restaurant that our friend
Speaker 1: Rebecca took in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and
Speaker 1: Morgan and I are just like radiating joy and love
Speaker 1: and we're holding each other. Um. And usually on the
Speaker 1: anniversary in October, every single year, both of us will
Speaker 1: share that on social media, UM, and just really hold
Speaker 1: space for what we refer to as the before times. UM.
Speaker 1: So before October fourteen, UM, I, I'm pausing because I
Speaker 1: want to say that I was a more joyful person,
Speaker 1: not to say that I don't have the ability to
Speaker 1: experience joy in this moment um in my life. UM.
Speaker 1: And you can like hear my voice quivering, And I think,
Speaker 1: just because like, UM, I think, the way that I
Speaker 1: want to answer this is the idea that like, I'm
Speaker 1: mourned the person that I was in October for I'm
Speaker 1: more in for the person that I was in October seventeen,
Speaker 1: because when a person experiences any type of violence, but
Speaker 1: I think, particularly for those of us who experienced rape
Speaker 1: and sexual assault or the spectrum of harm, UM, the
Speaker 1: person that we were going to become ceases to exist.
Speaker 1: And So in two seventeen, I had like incredible career aspirations.
Speaker 1: I thought that I wanted to be an executive director
Speaker 1: of a nonprofit. I you know, was casually dating UM
Speaker 1: a person and was in an intimate relationship. UM. I
Speaker 1: was having sex. I was really open to pleasure. UM.
Speaker 1: I had a dramatically for relationship with my body. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was someone who really moved through the
Speaker 1: world freely. Um. You know, I was someone who was
Speaker 1: not consumed with lawsuits and navigating the criminal legal system.
Speaker 1: And you know, so right before UM talking to you,
Speaker 1: I UM was having a zoom date with one of
Speaker 1: my best friends, Kate. And you know, every single time
Speaker 1: that I check in with one of my friends now
Speaker 1: so often, you know, they asked me questions like have
Speaker 1: you talked to the FBI recently? Have you talked to
Speaker 1: your lawyers? Have you talked to federal prosecutors? In Those
Speaker 1: were not questions that anyone was asking me, UM. And
Speaker 1: so I think my life was just so much more
Speaker 1: care free, and I wasn't carrying the weight. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I was a survivor. The first time that I was
Speaker 1: actually assaulted, I was sixteen, and the second time that
Speaker 1: I was actually assaulted that I was eighteen. And so
Speaker 1: in October, SE carried the weight of being a survivor.
Speaker 1: But I was really starting to unpack that identity. And
Speaker 1: I think it just when I think about that time
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, working through this in therapy, it's
Speaker 1: just I just mourn for myself because I think about, like,
Speaker 1: what would it look like if this hadn't happened, and
Speaker 1: what would it look What would my friendships look like,
Speaker 1: what would my potential romantic relationships look like? What would
Speaker 1: my relationship with my family look like? Because my relationship
Speaker 1: with my family has been incredibly impacted by this, my
Speaker 1: relationships with my friends has been impacted. UM, And so
Speaker 1: I think it's just the idea of UM. I really
Speaker 1: just try to practice so much compassion and grace and
Speaker 1: patience for myself UM, and to always hold space for
Speaker 1: the fact that, UM, I was a different person, but
Speaker 1: where I got into a car UM in October and
Speaker 1: something incredibly traumatic happened, and it's okay because that's what
Speaker 1: violence does to a person. UM. And the way that
Speaker 1: I really talk about it often or think about it
Speaker 1: often is that like when a bomb goes off inside
Speaker 1: of a room, UM, those walls fall back, and you know,
Speaker 1: a house might crumble, or you know, the structure that
Speaker 1: scaffolding might be left. UM. But when a person's body
Speaker 1: experiences violence, or particularly when what happened to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I have no physical scars. My body is still intact.
Speaker 1: And UM, it's really hard because sometimes you might look
Speaker 1: at me and you might think she's fine. Or you know,
Speaker 1: I might meet people today and they will have no
Speaker 1: idea unless they google me or I decided to disclose
Speaker 1: what happened to me. They would just think that I
Speaker 1: am a quote unquote like normal thirty three year old
Speaker 1: woman who was living her best life. And I just
Speaker 1: think that unless you know, someone knows my story. You know,
Speaker 1: the amount of violence that I have experienced in my life,
Speaker 1: particularly in the year of seventeen um like how much
Speaker 1: violence can a body withstand? And I think myself and
Speaker 1: many other survivors and victims can say, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: our bodies no no bounds because we are able. You know,
Speaker 1: It's why we identify as survivors. If you're in a
Speaker 1: room with five women, statistically one of them has survived
Speaker 1: that attempted sexual assault or right, there are so many
Speaker 1: of us, some who speak openly about their experiences and
Speaker 1: others who don't. That was something that really helped put
Speaker 1: things in sharper focus for me. How many of us
Speaker 1: are out there, and that you would just think this
Speaker 1: is someone living their best life. It is a carefree,
Speaker 1: joyful human in the world. But we're all carrying these
Speaker 1: stories with us. It's so many of us. And I
Speaker 1: think when you really contend with the scope of how
Speaker 1: many people are out there that our survivors and that
Speaker 1: you would never know, it makes me, on the one hand, enraged,
Speaker 1: like how much can a body take? But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I might we are an army. It's all
Speaker 1: it's all of us. It's so many of us. We
Speaker 1: are an army. In two thousand and eleven, I helped
Speaker 1: to organize uh the Slot Walk in New York City,
Speaker 1: and I organized that as an ally. I didn't identify
Speaker 1: as a survivor, and I was doing a lot of
Speaker 1: work to dismantle rape culture, but was so distanced from
Speaker 1: the sexual assault that I had experienced in high school
Speaker 1: and the sexual assault that I experienced four years earlier
Speaker 1: in college, and was like marching in the streets screaming
Speaker 1: about you know that no matter what you wear, it
Speaker 1: does not mean that you should. You know that you
Speaker 1: are welcoming sexual assault, etcetera. And that if you decide
Speaker 1: to report to the police, police should no matter what.
Speaker 1: But we're treating you with dignity and respect and trust.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until like early fall of that I
Speaker 1: really started to with the help of an incredible therapist.
Speaker 1: UM realize that, like deeply, deeply down in the depth
Speaker 1: of my brain and my body, because as we all know,
Speaker 1: the body keeps score. UM that I had experienced sexual
Speaker 1: assault earlier in my life and had just um, you know,
Speaker 1: was sort of like, this is over here and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to touch it. And the thing that I
Speaker 1: think about is that, UM, you know, survivors look like
Speaker 1: your best friend, they look like your mom, they look
Speaker 1: like your brother, UM, you know, your boss, UM, you
Speaker 1: know the elected officials sitting next to you. And the
Speaker 1: thing that I think about so often is that, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, survivors never owe you a disclosure. And I
Speaker 1: think that in a lot of the organizing work I do. UM,
Speaker 1: this is really important to me to always remember, is
Speaker 1: that we don't owe you our stories. And UM that
Speaker 1: you know, given the rates of sexual abuse in this
Speaker 1: country and the world globally, UM, and how under reported
Speaker 1: we know that sexual assault and rape is UM that
Speaker 1: you very often should assume that you are holding space
Speaker 1: and community with a survivor. And so when you you know,
Speaker 1: you could be at dinner party, you could be at
Speaker 1: you know, your child's school, at a school board meeting
Speaker 1: and talking about you know, everything from dress code to
Speaker 1: you know, like what does sexual assault UM reporting look
Speaker 1: like too? Even in your workplace and talking about workplace harassment.
Speaker 1: And you should always be operating under the assumption that
Speaker 1: there is a survivor sitting next to you, or that
Speaker 1: the person in power is a survivor UM, no matter
Speaker 1: in my opinion, how they might be, the words that
Speaker 1: they might be choosing to use, because sometimes, as we know,
Speaker 1: trauma responses can get the best of us. UM. But
Speaker 1: just the idea that UM, just because someone has never
Speaker 1: told you verbatim that they are a survivor of sexual
Speaker 1: assault or harassment or rape UM, does not mean that
Speaker 1: that is an experience that they have had. I am
Speaker 1: here today not because I want to be I am terrified.
Speaker 1: I am here because I believe it is my civic
Speaker 1: duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh and I were in high school. During the confirmation
Speaker 1: hearing of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanall back in, Christine
Speaker 1: Blaisieford testified that Kavanall raped her when they were in
Speaker 1: high school. Her story was powerful, and she talked about
Speaker 1: the personal cost of both her and her family and
Speaker 1: speaking up about it. But in the end, Kavanaugh was
Speaker 1: still confirmed. We live in a world that asks survivors
Speaker 1: to recount the stories of their trauma and their pain
Speaker 1: over and over and over again to get justice, whatever
Speaker 1: that even looks like. After Allison was raped, she reported
Speaker 1: what happened to the police and to lift something that
Speaker 1: I feel like we tell survivors is that if you
Speaker 1: tell your story again and again and again in the
Speaker 1: right ways to the right people, that is the way
Speaker 1: that you can sort of get justice. And we sort
Speaker 1: of say that with kind of a I guess, callous
Speaker 1: disregard for the fact that what we're really telling people
Speaker 1: is like, relive your trauma over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: and that's that is a pathway to get justice. In
Speaker 1: your case, you have done that. I can I can
Speaker 1: only imagine what if it's been like to relive this painful,
Speaker 1: traumatic experience over and over again but then not get
Speaker 1: any kind of satisfying outcome and not get any kind
Speaker 1: of even a even a like even just to reply
Speaker 1: back to an email. What has that been like for you?
Speaker 1: Excellent question, um. I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: I applaud like deep reflection every single time that I
Speaker 1: think about you know, why I chose to report in
Speaker 1: the reporting process. Um. You know, in high school, I
Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell my parents, I didn't
Speaker 1: tell friends. In college, same thing. My rapist in college
Speaker 1: was on an athletic team, and so I was sort
Speaker 1: of operating under the assumption that because he was in
Speaker 1: a position of power on campus and he would be
Speaker 1: more likely to be believed. And so then in UM,
Speaker 1: because I had had some significant memory loss, and UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought UM, and I sort of emphasized
Speaker 1: that because I was really there was an assumption that
Speaker 1: you know, because this was a lift driver, and because
Speaker 1: I had a copy of the map, and because I
Speaker 1: had a photo of him, and because I had his
Speaker 1: Taxing Limo UM Taxing Limo Commission license number, because in
Speaker 1: New York City, in order to drive a ride share
Speaker 1: uber or lift, you have to be licensed with the
Speaker 1: tlc UM Commission, and UM, I had a license plate number.
Speaker 1: And so because I had all of that information and
Speaker 1: a map of our ride that I was literally handing
Speaker 1: the New York Police Departments Special Victims Division. UM, like
Speaker 1: an opening close case is an assumption that I was
Speaker 1: making and you know, when I made the difficult decision
Speaker 1: to have a rape kit done, which I had never
Speaker 1: done before. Um, you know, and and we later found
Speaker 1: out that there was DNA and my kit. Um. Once again,
Speaker 1: I was sort of operating under the assumption that, like,
Speaker 1: this was going to be easy. I'm not a police officer,
Speaker 1: nor have I ever you know, investigated a case. But um,
Speaker 1: I just thought that this would be relatively easy. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, less than a month in, what
Speaker 1: I started to realize was that it was going to
Speaker 1: become my second full time job to hold this particular
Speaker 1: detective her name was Maria Kenyons out of the New
Speaker 1: York UM Brooklyn Special Victims Division, to respond to an email,
Speaker 1: to return a phone call, um to you know, like
Speaker 1: should I And then it became one of those moments
Speaker 1: of you know, like if I text her, is that
Speaker 1: me bothering her? And so then should I not text her?
Speaker 1: Should I only email her? If I call her too
Speaker 1: many times? Is she going to get annoyed with me?
Speaker 1: And the idea of like the like brain games that
Speaker 1: as a rape victim, mere weeks after my sexual assault
Speaker 1: and kidnapping, that I had to play in order to
Speaker 1: like get my detective to like me enough to have
Speaker 1: to respond to me is just horrifying. And then as
Speaker 1: weeks went on and UM, she would do things like
Speaker 1: withhold certain infort like we got the results of my
Speaker 1: read kit in December of seen, and she would tell
Speaker 1: me certain information but not tell me all information, and
Speaker 1: would withhold certain information. And then I would think, you know, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I need to act a certain way in order
Speaker 1: for her to tell me certain things. And UM in
Speaker 1: UM March of we had a meeting on March eighteenth,
Speaker 1: and that was when she had disclosed UM the majority
Speaker 1: of my rape kit results, which had disclosed that there
Speaker 1: were multiple seamen samples found in my rape kit, which
Speaker 1: had then UM alerted us to the fact that it
Speaker 1: was a gang rape and that there were multiple perpetrators
Speaker 1: who had assaulted me that night. And I started to cry.
Speaker 1: I started to show an emotion because I did not
Speaker 1: at that point in time remember the assault, but I
Speaker 1: was getting information and I did not have a memory
Speaker 1: to attach to that UM to that gang rape. And
Speaker 1: the Special Victims detective said, this is clearly making you upset.
Speaker 1: It seems like I shouldn't tell you things about your
Speaker 1: case because I don't want to upset you. And so
Speaker 1: then what that signified to me as a victim was
Speaker 1: never show emotion to law enforcement, because if you show
Speaker 1: emotion to law enforcement, then they're going to withhold vital
Speaker 1: information to you about your case. And so now four
Speaker 1: years later, I am incredible. I have a very difficult
Speaker 1: time showing emotion. I'm like still working on this in
Speaker 1: therapy and still working this with my friends, because if
Speaker 1: I show emotion, then I think that people either won't
Speaker 1: believe me. I think that people will find me to
Speaker 1: be difficult, and I think that people will never give
Speaker 1: me information that I believe is my right. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break at our back. In two thousand six,
Speaker 1: sexual assault survivor Toronto Burke started the me Too movement
Speaker 1: to lift up survivors of sexual assault, and on October fifteen,
Speaker 1: just a day after Allison's attack, actor Elissa Milano posted
Speaker 1: on Twitter, if all the women who have been sexually
Speaker 1: harassed and assaulted wrote me too as a status, we
Speaker 1: might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.
Speaker 1: This call to action took off, with millions of people
Speaker 1: using the hashtag to share their stories online and led
Speaker 1: to the arrests of high profile abusers like Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 1: And it was against this backdrop at the complexities of
Speaker 1: reporting sexual assault played out in real time for Allison.
Speaker 1: In April of twenty eighteen, the New York Special the
Speaker 1: New York Police Department Special Victims Division, and along with
Speaker 1: UM a couple of advocates in the city had UM
Speaker 1: an open forum in UM a Williamsburg hotel. I remember
Speaker 1: it was the Wife Hotel and where it was, and
Speaker 1: it was on a Thursday night and I had it
Speaker 1: was my last session. I was in a rape survivor
Speaker 1: group therapy UM in a uh yeah, a survivor support group.
Speaker 1: And I literally jumped in a cab from the Financial
Speaker 1: District and took it to Williamsburg and walked in like
Speaker 1: an hour late to this forum. And Paul Saracino, who
Speaker 1: was the Deputy Inspector of Special Victims at the time,
Speaker 1: was stood up and said to the group and basically said,
Speaker 1: you know, like, the New York Special Victims Division is here,
Speaker 1: we are here for rape victims. We have all the
Speaker 1: resources we want you to report. UM. The thing I
Speaker 1: think that it's important is that in October seen the
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein news had just broke. And so my story
Speaker 1: is parallel to the research of Toronto Brokes Me to movement,
Speaker 1: And so like the day that I was getting a
Speaker 1: rape kit done October sixteenth, seventeen, is when Alissa Milano
Speaker 1: was literally using the hashtag Toronto brokes hashtag me Too.
Speaker 1: And so, as this is happening and the world is
Speaker 1: breaking open with people's stories, I'm living that in real time.
Speaker 1: And so in April of seventeen, when this is happening, UM,
Speaker 1: Paul Saracino is on a mic and is saying like
Speaker 1: the New York Police Department is ready, like come, we
Speaker 1: are ready for you. And I they were open, the
Speaker 1: public was allowed to ask questions. And I wrote anonymously
Speaker 1: on a index card and I submitted it and UM
Speaker 1: Emily Gallagher, who at that point in time was running
Speaker 1: the Green Point Um sexual assault advocacy organization. She's now
Speaker 1: an elected official. Thank you. UM Emily Gallagher read it
Speaker 1: and she said, UM, this is from an audience member,
Speaker 1: and she read a verbatim and the card said, UM,
Speaker 1: I have an open and active case with Brooklyn Special Victims,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand how you can stand in front
Speaker 1: of us and tell us that you are ready, you know,
Speaker 1: to meet us with resources when I can't even get
Speaker 1: my detective to answer a fucking email or answer my
Speaker 1: phone call. And the audience like was silent for maybe
Speaker 1: like two seconds, and then just like you could hear
Speaker 1: them all take a deep breath, and then they just
Speaker 1: started to clap. And Paul Serracino, who's you know, a
Speaker 1: deputy inspector with in your police department, didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do and basically was like, come find me afterwards.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is then step of me doing another job. And
Speaker 1: I approached him and I said, I'm not ready to
Speaker 1: tell you my name. I'm not ready to tell you
Speaker 1: my detectives name. Like I think I know what this
Speaker 1: is going to look like, but I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1: And he gave me his card, and then two days
Speaker 1: later I emailed him and I was on the phone
Speaker 1: with him for forty five minutes, and I filed an
Speaker 1: official complaint against Maria kenyonees and then two days later
Speaker 1: my case was transferred and then I filed a complaint
Speaker 1: with the Civilian Complaint Review Board and then they came
Speaker 1: back and said that they were going to put a
Speaker 1: more efficient detective on my case, which at that point
Speaker 1: in time they already had. I did not find that
Speaker 1: to be efficient, and as if there had been, because
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is incredibly long winded, but like
Speaker 1: Maria kenyones had lost video evidence. So like a part
Speaker 1: of my case is that I was kidnapped from Brooklyn
Speaker 1: to New Jersey. That involves going through the Holland Tunnel.
Speaker 1: New York City is a police state. There is surveillance everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: and so like there's video evidence of me in the
Speaker 1: Hall Tunnel, in the back of this man's car, there
Speaker 1: is police evidence, or there's video evidence of me. And
Speaker 1: in Liberty State Park, which is a New Jersey state park,
Speaker 1: there's video evidence of me there. Maria Kenyon neglected to
Speaker 1: do her job and lost video evidence and a slew
Speaker 1: of other things that you know, we're done. And so
Speaker 1: I filed the Civilian Complaint Review Board UM a complaint
Speaker 1: with the CCRB and did not feel that they had
Speaker 1: done a satisfactory investigation. I then elevated that to the
Speaker 1: I A B. The Internal Affairs UM Bureau. I did
Speaker 1: not feel that they had done a satisfactory investigation, again
Speaker 1: because how can police hold themselves accountable? And then I
Speaker 1: went to the Department Investigation and I filed a complaint
Speaker 1: against her with the d o I. And then, finally,
Speaker 1: once I felt that d o I had not done
Speaker 1: a proper investigation, because again, how can police hold themselves
Speaker 1: accountable or investigate themselves? I then made the decision to
Speaker 1: file a lawsuit against m ip D. So why did
Speaker 1: you file that lawsuit? The reason why I wanted to
Speaker 1: file that lawsuit was because I am a white, sis
Speaker 1: queer but straight passing woman. And when I stand up
Speaker 1: in a room and say to Paul Saracino, or when
Speaker 1: I stand up anywhere at a press conference, on this
Speaker 1: podcast anywhere and I say fuck cops, my anger is
Speaker 1: going to be valid because when I say those things,
Speaker 1: I no one is going to take into account the
Speaker 1: color of my skin. I'm not going to fall into
Speaker 1: an angry black woman trope the way that I was
Speaker 1: treated when I reported. I carry all of the privileges
Speaker 1: in the world and the amount of time and energy
Speaker 1: and mental capacity and emotional capacity that it took for
Speaker 1: me to fight and to hold the NYPD accountable it's
Speaker 1: not possible for a single mother with two children who's
Speaker 1: working multiple jobs. It's not possible for someone who was
Speaker 1: a sex worker and was sexually assaulted by a client
Speaker 1: of theirs. And I'm not gonna say that it's not
Speaker 1: possible that they don't have the capacity to do that.
Speaker 1: But like the system is meant is not meant for
Speaker 1: us as survivors. The system is meant to exhaust us
Speaker 1: out of existence. And I decided to literally say, go
Speaker 1: funk yourself and watch me, like, try me please, because
Speaker 1: at every single turn, whatever you want to do, pile
Speaker 1: it the funk on, because there are so many people
Speaker 1: behind me who do not have the support system, because
Speaker 1: my friends are amazing who do not have the time.
Speaker 1: At that point in time, I was gainfully employed and
Speaker 1: I had a flexible work schedule, so I could try
Speaker 1: to file a foil for what's called my d D five,
Speaker 1: which is your case file, and I could figure out
Speaker 1: how to navigate the system, which is literally impossible. And
Speaker 1: the final option was like, fuck it, I'm gonna file
Speaker 1: a lawsuit. I want to see every single thing, every
Speaker 1: single decision making process, how you decided to put her
Speaker 1: in a position of power, all of these things show me,
Speaker 1: and so I filed the lawsuit on January twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: because I was like, we deserve better. And if this
Speaker 1: is how you're treating a college educated white woman, how
Speaker 1: the funk are you treating marginalized communities, folks who don't
Speaker 1: speak English, undocumented folks, sex workers, trans woman of color.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to spend my privilege and do everything
Speaker 1: that I can, because while I do not believe for
Speaker 1: everyone that reporting to the police or involving police in
Speaker 1: your you know, in your sexual assault experience, might not
Speaker 1: be the best option, and I understand that, but for
Speaker 1: some people, going to the police is going to be
Speaker 1: uh something that they want. And if that's what a
Speaker 1: survivor wants to do, I want them to be treated
Speaker 1: with nothing but dignity and respect and trust. I want
Speaker 1: them to walk into a police precinct and to be believed.
Speaker 1: The higher process has been dehumanizing and disrespectful. For instance,
Speaker 1: after her assault, Lift even charged Allison for the ride.
Speaker 1: In an open letter to the federal prosecutors who declined
Speaker 1: to take up her case, Alison recounts that they asked
Speaker 1: questions like why was she comfortable recounting her gang rape,
Speaker 1: and they asked what quote sexual positions. She recalled. There
Speaker 1: are no sexual positions in a rape, she wrote. It's
Speaker 1: an assault. It is brutal, it is penetration by force.
Speaker 1: It is not sex. Allison continues to fight. She's sitting
Speaker 1: left and the New York Police Department, and she isn't
Speaker 1: just fighting for herself. She's fighting to make systemic changes
Speaker 1: so people who are more marginalized than she is can
Speaker 1: expect better. With everything they put you through, how do
Speaker 1: you find the strength to keep fighting? The question that
Speaker 1: I honestly like ask myself like every single day or
Speaker 1: multiple times a day, is like who do these broken
Speaker 1: systems benefit? Um? Because you know, like how many times
Speaker 1: I have been in the streets in front of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, in front of you know, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: in d C. Or in Brooklyn or anywhere, and you know,
Speaker 1: UM during a lot of like m IPD protests, especially
Speaker 1: like last summer during UM a lot of the BLM protests,
Speaker 1: you know, is the question always like who do you
Speaker 1: protect and who do you serve? And like that's a
Speaker 1: question that I literally have like a post it on
Speaker 1: my desk and and and it just says that because
Speaker 1: they the system and I literally mean, like any system
Speaker 1: will always tell you that they have you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, like we serve X community. You know, we're
Speaker 1: here to protect X, we are here to etcetera. And um,
Speaker 1: that is bullshit. And they are always here. I think
Speaker 1: about it sort of like an HR in any you know,
Speaker 1: company or office space. It's like a R is not
Speaker 1: there to protect the workers. HR is there to protect
Speaker 1: the company, and the police are there to protect themselves.
Speaker 1: Police means are some of the most powerful unions in
Speaker 1: the country and they are there to protect themselves. And
Speaker 1: for me, it's just the idea of like it took
Speaker 1: me a while to get here, but it was when
Speaker 1: I changed my thinking from being an individual and thinking
Speaker 1: about like this happened to me, this I am an individual,
Speaker 1: this happened to me, and flipping that and thinking about
Speaker 1: this in terms of systems and thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: and I again I acknowledge that like there are community organizers,
Speaker 1: there are like black folks and organizers who have been
Speaker 1: doing this and thinking about this for years, and a
Speaker 1: lot of that, like systemic work came from like folks
Speaker 1: of color, black folks in my life who had been
Speaker 1: doing that for years, especially like a lot of my
Speaker 1: work comes I like started in the abortion rights world,
Speaker 1: and so in the idea of like, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't think of like where I learned this, but the
Speaker 1: term of like a right doesn't mean if you can
Speaker 1: access it. Your right to abortion does not mean jack
Speaker 1: ship if you cannot access an abortion, and so like
Speaker 1: that was one of the first times that I ever
Speaker 1: thought about something systemically, and so then it was just
Speaker 1: the idea of like when it came to me attempting
Speaker 1: to do this work and thinking about Okay, so like
Speaker 1: I walked in to a hospital, I guess it really
Speaker 1: started like when I contacted LIFT that later that night,
Speaker 1: and you know the only thing that I could do
Speaker 1: was like open an app and like file a written complaint.
Speaker 1: And then like a couple of minutes later, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I've had vaginal bleeding and discomfort and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this map and I was taking to an entirely different
Speaker 1: borrow and state. So none of those things sit right
Speaker 1: with me. So I'm going to call their like internal
Speaker 1: nine one one customer service, and this person on the
Speaker 1: phone is just like, Okay, well, we will refund you
Speaker 1: like nine dollars in eleven cents or whatever, but we're
Speaker 1: still going to charge you twelve dollars and eighty one
Speaker 1: cents because that's what the ride from Crown Heights to
Speaker 1: Williamsburg would have been. That was the reginal right Crown Hends,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Polians broke Brooklyn. And in that moment, I was like, Okay, sure,
Speaker 1: because I guess in reality, like I did get picked
Speaker 1: up in Crown Heights and I did go home to Williamsburg,
Speaker 1: but there was just like, you know, eighty minutes of
Speaker 1: you know, ride in between and twenty two minutes of
Speaker 1: a stop in a park. But shore Lift, you go
Speaker 1: ahead and you make that profit. Got it, sure? And
Speaker 1: then you know, on Monday morning, on the sixteenth of October,
Speaker 1: when I walked into a hospital and you know, had
Speaker 1: a rape kit done and you know, talked to four
Speaker 1: beat cops and then had to carry my own rape
Speaker 1: kit because the cop forgot it on the chair in
Speaker 1: the room and I grabbed it, and then had a
Speaker 1: police escort outside of the hospital. Walking out of the
Speaker 1: hospital with my best friend Morgan, and we're standing outside
Speaker 1: of a marked police car and we're going and I
Speaker 1: get put into a marked police car as if we
Speaker 1: are criminals, and then my rape kitch sits shotgun while
Speaker 1: we ride to the Brooklyn Um Special Victims Division and
Speaker 1: Prospect Heights and then talk to this detective and it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, when I think about it now, I just
Speaker 1: think of, like, it's been very sad when I say this,
Speaker 1: but like this happens on a daily basis. There's so
Speaker 1: many victims, this happens to Like I was just looking
Speaker 1: at the root at the crime stats that UM New
Speaker 1: York City put out, and I think it's, uh one
Speaker 1: two one rapes have been reported in New York City
Speaker 1: so far this year, and so that's one thou people
Speaker 1: who have reported to the n ip D so far.
Speaker 1: And so then when you think about it in terms
Speaker 1: like that, and like a couple of weeks later, I
Speaker 1: got a first I got a bill for my rape kit.
Speaker 1: And so it's just the idea of like the system
Speaker 1: is not seeing you as a person. They don't see
Speaker 1: you as a three dimensional human. They don't see you
Speaker 1: as someone who like has to hey your bills, has
Speaker 1: to raise your kids, has to exist in the world.
Speaker 1: They it's just like churning you through and So when
Speaker 1: I think about it in terms of the idea of
Speaker 1: like I am not alone. This happened to me, but
Speaker 1: I am not alone, and in order for there to
Speaker 1: be like true change, it doesn't matter that like I
Speaker 1: called my credit card company and then they had a
Speaker 1: contact lift and like get that refund and I had
Speaker 1: a fight with Eric Schneiderman, who at that point time
Speaker 1: was the Attorney General and like a garbage human and
Speaker 1: a serial perpetrator of of abuse to get refunded from
Speaker 1: my rape kit. But like if I bang on that
Speaker 1: door and like make my voice heard and like, do
Speaker 1: not shut the funk up. The next time that someone
Speaker 1: in billing sees this code, whatever the code is x
Speaker 1: x x y y Y, whatever it is for a
Speaker 1: rape kit, it's going to be flagged because they're gonna
Speaker 1: be like the motherfucking ass whole Alison Turker, like I, yep, okay,
Speaker 1: we don't need another person coming here and banging on
Speaker 1: our door. Okay, nope, okay, flag. No one's ever getting
Speaker 1: built for a rape kit from New York Presbyterian ever again,
Speaker 1: got it? And I think for me, it's like that's
Speaker 1: where my strength comes from, is the idea of like
Speaker 1: I have now. I just think that like the system
Speaker 1: is fucked beyond reason and if we can just start
Speaker 1: to make like what I refer to as like relentless incrementalism,
Speaker 1: Like I want to bowldoze everything, I want to burn
Speaker 1: it to the ground, but like it's not always it's
Speaker 1: not always possible. UM. So I think it's that like
Speaker 1: really reframing my mind to think about it in terms
Speaker 1: of systems. And then I think the other thing is
Speaker 1: like I have an incredible I like a cry thinking
Speaker 1: about it. I have an incredible, incredible group of friends.
Speaker 1: UM and uh, like literally just talking about it makes me, um,
Speaker 1: does it make me sad? I just Um, I would
Speaker 1: not be able to do this work UM without a
Speaker 1: community that I have. UM. My best friend Morgan was
Speaker 1: with me the day that I reported and held my
Speaker 1: hand while I had a kid done UM, and our
Speaker 1: relationship has really um struggled and fractured at points, UM,
Speaker 1: but we have come back together and are even stronger now,
Speaker 1: which I think is UM like radical honesty and transparency
Speaker 1: really got us there. And just the idea that like
Speaker 1: trauma is hard and what it does to people is hard.
Speaker 1: And I went through a phase that I call like
Speaker 1: my trauma monster phase where I was not kind to
Speaker 1: myself into my community. UM, and my community really practiced
Speaker 1: a lot of grace and compassion and patience with me.
Speaker 1: UM and friends who just like understand that it is
Speaker 1: it is impossible. It's impossible to to take on the
Speaker 1: largest police force in the country. Sometimes it is impossible
Speaker 1: to take on a billion dollar tech company. UM, like
Speaker 1: Lift hired private investigators and who like stood outside my
Speaker 1: apartment and like would photograph me. And that's hard, you know,
Speaker 1: Like it's impossible to be told by the FBI to
Speaker 1: grow out your hair because you will be more believable
Speaker 1: if and when your case goes to trial. And that's hard. UM.
Speaker 1: But my friends are just so patient and so supportive. UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's another place that I really get my
Speaker 1: strength from. I'm so glad you have this community of
Speaker 1: supportive people to pour into you and lift you up.
Speaker 1: God knows you deserve it, and I'm I'm so happy
Speaker 1: that you have that. My heart goes out to folks
Speaker 1: who don't feel like they have that, but my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that you do. Yeah. And UM, to
Speaker 1: piggyback off of that, it's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I like, if I see someone on Twitter who shares
Speaker 1: their story, I will DM them immediately. I don't know them,
Speaker 1: they are a stranger, but because I am so like
Speaker 1: truly so grateful. I love the term pouring into UM
Speaker 1: because I am so grateful to have that community and
Speaker 1: I know that I would not be where I am
Speaker 1: today without it. I if I see folks who are
Speaker 1: sharing their story publicly or like alluding to sharing their
Speaker 1: sharing their story, or if people in my community, like
Speaker 1: I will get a text from you know, friends or
Speaker 1: mutual friends and they'll say, hey, like, I know this
Speaker 1: person Jane Doe and she is experiencing sexual harassment, or
Speaker 1: like she's going to report and she's about to walk
Speaker 1: into a police station and she doesn't know what to
Speaker 1: do UM. And so now you know, I am always
Speaker 1: wanting to pay it forward because I cannot fathom what
Speaker 1: it would be like to do this alone, to report alone,
Speaker 1: to be a plaintiff and a lawsuit alone, to tell
Speaker 1: friends and family like to just to have to like
Speaker 1: navigate anything and to not have support. And so it's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I'm like very open and
Speaker 1: I say, like my d ms are open there, you know,
Speaker 1: on my website they're as like a contact me page
Speaker 1: and like I will respond and just anything I will
Speaker 1: dump on the phone with you. We will can get
Speaker 1: in a zoom. Um, you know, anything that I can do,
Speaker 1: because I truly, truly, truly would never want someone to
Speaker 1: feel alone, and being a survivor of sexual assault can
Speaker 1: feel so lonely and so isolating. More after a quick break,
Speaker 1: let's get right back into it. As of right now,
Speaker 1: Beteral attorneys have not taken up Allison's case and no
Speaker 1: charges have been filed against anyone for what happened to her,
Speaker 1: and she believes it has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: being a quote difficult victim. So to this day, the
Speaker 1: state's attorney that they have not they have just declined
Speaker 1: to take up your case. Have they given you any
Speaker 1: kind of clear reasoning why that is no? And so um,
Speaker 1: it's uh not even the state's attorney. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a federal point because I mean it's again things that
Speaker 1: I only am slowly starting to learn. Um, because when
Speaker 1: you connect someone across the lines, it becomes an automatic
Speaker 1: federal offense. And so for um, my case was originally
Speaker 1: with the Southern District of New York. They declined to prosecute.
Speaker 1: It was then moved to the Eastern District of New York,
Speaker 1: which is where it's currently sitting. UM and federal prosecutors. UM.
Speaker 1: It's been with federal prosecutors for over two years now.
Speaker 1: And UM, I think they have not given me a
Speaker 1: direct answer and they're sort of talking. Point in line
Speaker 1: item is that you know they are quote actively investigating it. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know what more you need to actively investigate. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, UM, the way that I
Speaker 1: see it is that you know, I am, in their
Speaker 1: mind a quote unquote difficult victim. UM. I speak really
Speaker 1: openly about the perfectctive narrative. I speak really openly in
Speaker 1: case some point when I'm doing today, like I speak
Speaker 1: really openly about what it's like to navigate the system.
Speaker 1: I speak really openly about, you know, UM, misconduct by
Speaker 1: the New York Police Department. UM, and I speak about,
Speaker 1: you know, my struggles of you know, what does justice
Speaker 1: look like? Do I want is my you know, quote
Speaker 1: unquote desired outcome of reporting, is my perpetrators being in prison? UM?
Speaker 1: You know, can you be a you know, prison abolitionist?
Speaker 1: Can you do you know, transformative and restorative justice work
Speaker 1: and also be a victim and a witness in a
Speaker 1: federal crime. Can can you hold all of those hard
Speaker 1: things and all of those truths at once? And I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I also am someone who sort of like laughs in
Speaker 1: the face of power. Um, it's a privilege that I hold.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, great, your federal prosecutor. I don't know
Speaker 1: why you think that makes you better than me. Um.
Speaker 1: Federal prosecutors don't really like that. UM. Asked also asked
Speaker 1: me how many funks I give? And I think that
Speaker 1: they are used to victims who will sit across the
Speaker 1: table from them and being like, I'm so grateful to you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, whereas I will sit across the
Speaker 1: table from them and be like, you're doing your job.
Speaker 1: No one applauds for me when I do my job, um,
Speaker 1: And I think it's the idea of like, I believe
Speaker 1: and envision and work towards a world where shoutout Sabrina Hearsisa.
Speaker 1: Survivors are leaders. Our survivorship is what makes us leaders.
Speaker 1: And we are not charity cases. We are not numbers
Speaker 1: for your end of your report, like we are the
Speaker 1: people at the center of everything, including if we decide
Speaker 1: to file criminal charges, like we are the ones who
Speaker 1: get to decide things. Fine, the Constitution is a thing,
Speaker 1: I get it, like it's important, but like it was
Speaker 1: founded on white supremacy and we should just abolish that
Speaker 1: ship right now. And so to me, it's just the
Speaker 1: idea of like, federal prosecutors should be open and honest
Speaker 1: and transparent and not gate keep information about our cases
Speaker 1: from us. We should not be like wandering around our
Speaker 1: apartments and wondering, like what's the status of my case?
Speaker 1: Who are the detectives on my case? What is the
Speaker 1: statute of limitations and what is it going to run out?
Speaker 1: Like I wonder like am I going to have to
Speaker 1: write a victim impact statement one day? What is the
Speaker 1: likelihood of me going to trial? Like all of these
Speaker 1: questions survivors should be empowered with because we are, most often,
Speaker 1: particularly in sexual fault, we are the only victims and
Speaker 1: witnesses to the crime, and yet we are treated and
Speaker 1: diminished so deeply within the system that by the end
Speaker 1: of it, we're like, funk, this s norms. I don't
Speaker 1: want to do anything, And I think federal prosecutors are
Speaker 1: really expecting me one day to contact them and to
Speaker 1: be like I've had enough. I'm too impatient. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: We're like every single three months, I'm going to email
Speaker 1: them and be like, Hey, what's up? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: When to jump on the phone, when tell me what's happening?
Speaker 1: I don't you know, Like, are you, like, what are
Speaker 1: the key performance indicators of being a federal prosecutor? Because
Speaker 1: right now, I my question to the Eastern District is
Speaker 1: how many other sexual assault cases are sitting on your
Speaker 1: docket that you refuse to bring to trial? Why not
Speaker 1: call a gran jury? But they don't like to be
Speaker 1: asked questions And I love to ask questions. I Mean,
Speaker 1: that's something else that I am so taken by in
Speaker 1: terms of your story, is how many different systems you
Speaker 1: are asking. You are asking the hard questions of hospital systems,
Speaker 1: the NYPD, UM you know list, like you're you're actively
Speaker 1: suing lift right now, Like what is it feel like
Speaker 1: to be hammering to get any kind of accountability from
Speaker 1: all of these different, very powerful, very politically connected, very savvy,
Speaker 1: very muneied systems all at once as one person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an incredible question. And I appreciate you asking it. UM.
Speaker 1: I think it's the question that I just always want
Speaker 1: to ask, is like what is power? Who has it?
Speaker 1: What is hard power? What is soft power? UM? I'm
Speaker 1: always interrogating, like capitalism, let's look into it, um, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think I really love to ask like generative questions.
Speaker 1: And so the idea of asking, you know, folks at
Speaker 1: Lift and UM, you know, particularly the like folks on
Speaker 1: the board at LIFT. Case in point, Valerie Jarrett came
Speaker 1: from the Obama White House really invested and I put
Speaker 1: your quotes invested And I'm not questioning her morals, but
Speaker 1: like really invested in um, you know, work around women
Speaker 1: and girls and gender based violence. Sits on the board
Speaker 1: of Lift has remained silent for years as they have
Speaker 1: come under fire and as we have all filed lawsuits. UM.
Speaker 1: And for me, it's just the idea of like, can
Speaker 1: you help me understand what's happening on the inside. Can
Speaker 1: you help me understand like how you can hold these
Speaker 1: many truths at once? And I think it's the idea
Speaker 1: of I'm you know, Oftentimes people will say, you know,
Speaker 1: like Alison turcos Is, you know, she's critiquing or she's
Speaker 1: bulldozing or she just wants to like burn everything to
Speaker 1: the ground. And the thing is like Lift has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do incredible work, and they are you know,
Speaker 1: people use Lift to get to and from, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm sure that like people on their way to
Speaker 1: have babies are just like ordering the lift and getting
Speaker 1: to you know, the hospital there, you know, taking um lift,
Speaker 1: you know, to have their abortions. They're taking lift, you know,
Speaker 1: They're I'm not trying to abolish Lift by any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. I'm just wanting to ensure that when
Speaker 1: you get into a lift that people on both sides,
Speaker 1: both like the workers and the drivers, are you know,
Speaker 1: have access to a livable wage and benefits. And so
Speaker 1: like that's something that I'm trying to cognizantly be really
Speaker 1: thoughtful about. And also that if and when someone reports
Speaker 1: a sexual assault to Lift, how are they being readd
Speaker 1: Because when I reported mine, and my last communication with
Speaker 1: Lift was I'm thinking about filing a police report. What
Speaker 1: does this look like in collaboration with your company? And
Speaker 1: I sent that on Sunday, October fift around seven pm
Speaker 1: my time, and Lift ghosted me, and I was like, Hey, dude,
Speaker 1: what do I do? Like, do you want to follow
Speaker 1: this report? How do I do this? Let's work together.
Speaker 1: At that point in my life, I was like, let's
Speaker 1: work together this billion dollar tech company the police. Again.
Speaker 1: I self growth a lot since then, and LIFT could
Speaker 1: not fucking respond and refuse to respond because they're like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do this, but yet now publicly
Speaker 1: they're like, we will always, you know, work with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: We're going to do great things. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just the idea that I'm not Again, this comes from
Speaker 1: an incredible place of privilege to say this. I'm not
Speaker 1: afraid because what do I have to lose? Like what
Speaker 1: is LIFT gonna do to me? Like do you want
Speaker 1: to take my life savings? Great, it's not that much
Speaker 1: or really anything, Like do you want to take like
Speaker 1: my dignity? There's not Like I've been sexually assaulted three
Speaker 1: times and the most recent one was a gang, right,
Speaker 1: Like what dignity do you think that I have? And
Speaker 1: it's just the idea of like what I don't have
Speaker 1: anything left to give you because when in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna speak from an I space, I don't want
Speaker 1: to generalize, like as a victim of sexual assault, as
Speaker 1: a victim of an aggravated kidnapping, of kidnapping a gun point,
Speaker 1: like the things that my perpetrators have said to me,
Speaker 1: the things that people who have perpetrated violence against me,
Speaker 1: the things that people on the internet. Again don't read
Speaker 1: the comments, but like will come in and say, like,
Speaker 1: you made this up, this isn't true. You're trying to
Speaker 1: get attention. Whatever. If leadership at left or board members
Speaker 1: or shareholders or anyone want to push back against me,
Speaker 1: my question is like who do you protect and who
Speaker 1: do you serve? What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 1: Because I would think that you would want your legacy
Speaker 1: to be at an organization like we helped people get
Speaker 1: from place A to place B. We're helping transportation to
Speaker 1: be safer. We're helping to do these things and not
Speaker 1: during my time on the board, we were sued by
Speaker 1: thousands of women more after a quick break, let's get
Speaker 1: right back into it. After an investigative piece about sexual
Speaker 1: assaut by drivers pointed out that there was no publicly
Speaker 1: available data about assaults and rideshairs Lift and Uber both
Speaker 1: promised to deliver our report on those numbers now Uber
Speaker 1: actually did release their report the following year, Lift didn't,
Speaker 1: and by the time they finally published their report showing
Speaker 1: that four thousand, one d and fifty eight reports of
Speaker 1: sexual assault by drivers and writers between the beginning of
Speaker 1: twenties seventeen and the end of twenty nine seen, it
Speaker 1: was a full three years after the deadline land set.
Speaker 1: I hate that we live in this world where you,
Speaker 1: as someone who has already been through so much, has
Speaker 1: been harmed, is doing this kind of unpaid, incredibly heavy,
Speaker 1: thankless work to to make Lift a safer platform for everybody,
Speaker 1: kind of like against their will. Like you're doing this
Speaker 1: work of like dragging them, kicking and screaming to making
Speaker 1: their platforms safer, and they're a billion dollar tech company
Speaker 1: and you're just you, and I just it just it's
Speaker 1: I almost kind of can't wrap my head around. But
Speaker 1: and seeing the seeing Lifts posture in public, like when
Speaker 1: they finally released their you know, very late report on
Speaker 1: sexual thoughts reported that happened in Lifts, you know, being like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, of course you want to have transparency and
Speaker 1: we care about safe writers, and it just kind of
Speaker 1: erase the fact that it's it was people like you, Alison,
Speaker 1: who had to force them to put this report out late.
Speaker 1: Might I add like it just erases or I feel
Speaker 1: like it's an attempt to erase your voice and all
Speaker 1: that you've been through because it makes their company look
Speaker 1: like woke and good and helpful. That's that's completely it.
Speaker 1: And I think also they, um, they will never outside
Speaker 1: of what I assume is like in private slack messages
Speaker 1: where you know, um, I always make a joke to
Speaker 1: my friends that I assume that you know, um, if
Speaker 1: we did like a control f and their slack messages
Speaker 1: for my name, it would just be um, you know,
Speaker 1: a party. Um. But I I think LIFT will never
Speaker 1: ever give credit where credit is due, and I don't
Speaker 1: need credit from Lift, Like that's not what I want.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is is that so much of the
Speaker 1: work that I do is just the idea of like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not going to make my life better. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't file a lawsuit to make my
Speaker 1: life better because I know, particularly you know, in putting
Speaker 1: my name on a being public, um, I knew that
Speaker 1: it was um for me an easy decision because in
Speaker 1: putting a name in a face to it to my trauma,
Speaker 1: it was gonna be harder for a billion dollar tech
Speaker 1: company to ignore me, but for so many other people.
Speaker 1: You know, being that public is not a decision. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not an easy decision. UM. And I think it's
Speaker 1: just the idea that like, you know, I'm assuming them.
Speaker 1: They can't be like, oh, Alison Turcos, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for all this work that you've done. UM. But
Speaker 1: I think it's the idea of like they can never
Speaker 1: acknowledge outside of saying, you know, we had four thousand
Speaker 1: sexual assaults between but they will never call them. They're
Speaker 1: going to always refer to them as safety incidents, which
Speaker 1: I think is UM in my opinion, like really diminishing. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's really hard because, like I, UM, I get
Speaker 1: really emotional when I talked about the report because I
Speaker 1: worked so hard for that accountability UM. And yet it
Speaker 1: feels really hard to see to have a company who
Speaker 1: at first told you that what happened to you didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Lift at first told me that, um, there was an
Speaker 1: error and that either um my driver dropped picked me
Speaker 1: up and dropped me off and then forgot to end
Speaker 1: the ride. So then he went to New Jersey on
Speaker 1: a second ride, which the map will clearly show that
Speaker 1: did not happen. And then when I told them that,
Speaker 1: they were like, well, it must be UM a glitch
Speaker 1: and you either didn't update your phone, so it's an
Speaker 1: iOS error. So they tried to blame it on Apple.
Speaker 1: I have an iPhone and they tried to blame it
Speaker 1: on Apple. And then they said that like, there must
Speaker 1: be some connectivity error. So they just attempted to really
Speaker 1: like gaslight me, gaslight me within twenty four hours of
Speaker 1: being can nap traffic sexually assaulted and basically say like
Speaker 1: this didn't happen, and like documented I have emails that
Speaker 1: say like lift saying like this never happened. This is
Speaker 1: a tech error on on your end, and then fighting
Speaker 1: relentlessly to have them release a report, and then seeing
Speaker 1: a report come out on a Friday Thursday night, late
Speaker 1: Thursday night, Friday morning, and seeing that one of those
Speaker 1: numbers from UM, I am one of those numbers. And
Speaker 1: it goes back to the reason why like I will
Speaker 1: fight relentlessly is because it just goes to show like
Speaker 1: I am one of many and like we have to
Speaker 1: fight or I we UM are fighting against a behemoth
Speaker 1: of a system and the idea for them to say
Speaker 1: that this is a safety report and that these are
Speaker 1: safety incidents UM to me, and I've said this before
Speaker 1: and I will say it again, like, this is not
Speaker 1: a safety report, this is a harm report. They are
Speaker 1: reporting on harm and harm that they are actively complicit
Speaker 1: in and hiding UM. And yes, they could say, like
Speaker 1: we're not hiding it. This is a transparency report, but
Speaker 1: it's not UM hiding in the sense that like, if
Speaker 1: I had not filed my lawsuit, my number would not
Speaker 1: have been there. And so how many people have contacted LIFT,
Speaker 1: either through a written complaint or a phone call, and
Speaker 1: then Lift said to them, I don't think that happened.
Speaker 1: I think that what happened is that it's probably your
Speaker 1: iOS system has has to be updated, or like, I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry that this happened to you. We're going to
Speaker 1: offer you a five dollar credit, maybe a fifty dollar credit,
Speaker 1: so it never actually gets reported. And so that is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I will, like again relentlessly
Speaker 1: fight to see real numbers and to see you know
Speaker 1: what what you know. Yes, they'll show us the taxomy,
Speaker 1: but like what happens when someone calls and said I
Speaker 1: think I was just sexually assaulted by a driver, And
Speaker 1: what is the back end? What is the script that
Speaker 1: you have someone read? And the thing that feels a
Speaker 1: little bit um not great to me is that you
Speaker 1: have the sexual soul advocacy organizations like RAIN and like
Speaker 1: it's on us who partner with LIFT. And sometimes it
Speaker 1: feels like you have these organizations that are allowing LIFT
Speaker 1: to use them to rehab their brand. And I really
Speaker 1: struggle with that because I just wish I'm like, who
Speaker 1: is truly holding them accountable? It's not Valerie Jarrett because
Speaker 1: she's sitting on their board and most likely getting paid
Speaker 1: to be on that board, and like, good for you, girl,
Speaker 1: make all your money. But like maybe let's just think
Speaker 1: of a different way to do it. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like the folks on the Safety Advisory Council at
Speaker 1: LIFT UM, which is like, uh, it's on us and
Speaker 1: a couple of other folks and Reliance and others, Like
Speaker 1: who is doing it? Because right now it feels like
Speaker 1: I'm on an island of my own UM and it
Speaker 1: it's hard sometimes UM, but yet it's like we gotta
Speaker 1: report they haven't agreed to release another one. UM, But
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that they have a report. Uber is going
Speaker 1: to release another report at the end of the year. UM.
Speaker 1: But I just you know, UM, when you get into
Speaker 1: a ride share there is an assumption of safety. And
Speaker 1: I never want someone to go through what I went through,
Speaker 1: and I will never stop talking about it, and I
Speaker 1: will never stop holding institutions accountable because I think particularly
Speaker 1: as women, as FAMI identified folks, as queer folks, UM,
Speaker 1: particularly for communities of color. Again I am not I
Speaker 1: am white, UM, but like when you move through the world,
Speaker 1: we are not safe. And I think that rides share
Speaker 1: companies and particularly left in UM when I got into
Speaker 1: that car, because what was happening is that the Muslim
Speaker 1: band had just passed and they were donating a million
Speaker 1: dollars to UM A sail you. They're doing campaigns of
Speaker 1: like where your better boyfriend? And to me, it's just
Speaker 1: the idea of like, I need you to just be
Speaker 1: a little bit more honest. I need you to just
Speaker 1: be a little bit more transparent, and I need you
Speaker 1: to actually put the people who are being harmed at
Speaker 1: the center. And that means rideshare sexual assault survivors and
Speaker 1: we are more of us are starting to speak out.
Speaker 1: More of us are starting to be public and you
Speaker 1: cannot put a value on our trauma, but it would
Speaker 1: be really helpful if you would not just erase what
Speaker 1: happened to me to a safety incident, Alison, I have
Speaker 1: to tell I mean, I am like on the verge
Speaker 1: of tears. I the I want you to know that
Speaker 1: you're not alone, and that so many people are advocating
Speaker 1: for you, people that you'll never meet, never hear from
Speaker 1: our listening to your story and thinking fuck, yes, you
Speaker 1: know where how can people what can people do to
Speaker 1: support you? What can people do to make sure that
Speaker 1: what what you just described that that is a change
Speaker 1: that we're able to create together. Yeah, it's a good question. Um,
Speaker 1: I think you know. Um, some nice people are like,
Speaker 1: we're going to cancel lift, and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the answer. I appreciate that, um, but I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the answer. I think it's, to be honest,
Speaker 1: the best way to do it is like support survivors
Speaker 1: in your life, Like the lift fight is, you know,
Speaker 1: is sort of over here and is like a bucket
Speaker 1: of work. But I think like truly, genuinely and honestly
Speaker 1: is like support survivors in your life, and like similar
Speaker 1: to what I had said earlier, in the sense of like,
Speaker 1: excuse me. If you're in a work meeting, if you're
Speaker 1: you know, at a sleepover with your friends, if you're
Speaker 1: on a call anything, be aware that there is most
Speaker 1: likely a survivor sitting next to you. Be aware that
Speaker 1: you were holding space with a survivor. UM. Be aware
Speaker 1: of the language that you use, and you know, don't
Speaker 1: use victim blaming language, you know. And UM. The thing
Speaker 1: that I always think about, UM is if someone comes
Speaker 1: to you and shares a story with you, and that
Speaker 1: is a story of sexual assault, workplace harassment, anything, UM,
Speaker 1: there is a very likely chance that you might be
Speaker 1: the first person that they tell. And if you were
Speaker 1: the first person, how you received that and hold space
Speaker 1: for their harm is going to dramatically impact literally the
Speaker 1: rest of their life and how they choose to UM
Speaker 1: heal from that or tell other people or seek care. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the best questions to ask
Speaker 1: people is both how can I support you? And is
Speaker 1: this a feelings moment or a fixing moment? Because sometimes
Speaker 1: we have a tendency to go into fixing mode and
Speaker 1: it's just like, holy shit, a person that I love
Speaker 1: was just harmed. I want to murder this person. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go do this thing. I'm gonna whatever, Like we
Speaker 1: should get you a therapist, we should you know, do
Speaker 1: you want to go to this like silent retreat whatever?
Speaker 1: And instead of being like, I'm really sorry that happened,
Speaker 1: how can I support you in this moment? Provide all
Speaker 1: of the space for that person to just like b
Speaker 1: And that might be hard, and it might be difficult,
Speaker 1: and it might bring up ship for you, but that
Speaker 1: moment is not about you. That moment is about the
Speaker 1: person who just experienced something horrible and traumatic. And then
Speaker 1: like the next words out of your mouth might be,
Speaker 1: is this a feeling moment or a fixing moment? Are
Speaker 1: you looking for me to just listen while you vent
Speaker 1: and cry and just open yourself up? Or do you
Speaker 1: want me to problem solve with you and allow that
Speaker 1: person to tell you what they need because that is
Speaker 1: going to be instrumental. And like, honestly, that is what
Speaker 1: people can do for me, because I think for me
Speaker 1: it was um and my mom and I talked about
Speaker 1: this before, but like the first time that I told
Speaker 1: my mom about what happened in college. Her response was like,
Speaker 1: why did you wait so long to tell me? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh not the thanks mom, love you, um,
Speaker 1: and that it just wasn't what I needed in that
Speaker 1: moment and shout out to Susan who was really done
Speaker 1: the work and started seeing a therapist and it was great. Um.
Speaker 1: But now it's just the idea of when we hold
Speaker 1: space for survivors to be like true and authentic and
Speaker 1: their most three dimensional selves instead of being like, well,
Speaker 1: how much did you drink that night? Well, like you
Speaker 1: had had sex with him before. I don't know. Consent
Speaker 1: is fluid, It must be enthusiastic. It can be withdrawn
Speaker 1: at any point in time. And I think, Um, the
Speaker 1: other way that folks can support me in what I
Speaker 1: mean is like support the world at large is like
Speaker 1: read survivor stories. Um, read survivor stories, listen to survivor podcasts. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, like Roxane Gay has an incredible anthology called
Speaker 1: Not That Bad, reading Chanelle Miller's book, Um, you know
Speaker 1: there's an incredible podcast from NPR Are called Believed. Um,
Speaker 1: And like sitting with that and just really understanding and
Speaker 1: acknowledging that, like there are plethora of stories and as
Speaker 1: I said at the beginning, like there's no repeat experience,
Speaker 1: No survivor experience is ever going to be the same
Speaker 1: um and also acknowledging that like it's complicated. The survivor
Speaker 1: experience is complicated. It is never cut and dry, it
Speaker 1: is never black and white. And once you allow yourself
Speaker 1: to just hold space and sit in the MUK with
Speaker 1: someone and like you are able to see them and
Speaker 1: to just acknowledge like this is hard and I am
Speaker 1: sorry and I'm uncomfortable right now, but I don't need
Speaker 1: to tell the survivor that. And I'm just going to
Speaker 1: be here for you, and I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: safer and support of space and anything that I can
Speaker 1: do for you. And sometimes that might be like my
Speaker 1: best friend Morgan and I watch a lot of Grays
Speaker 1: and now I'm together, Like all I want to do
Speaker 1: sometimes you just Goenner reading the Way to Blanket and
Speaker 1: watch Grayson Anatomy and that's it. My best friend Kat
Speaker 1: and I watch a lot of Your Housewives, Like sometimes
Speaker 1: I just want to sit and like, you know, drink
Speaker 1: some wine and do that and whatever. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just the idea of like how were you showing
Speaker 1: up for survivors? Got a story about an interesting thing
Speaker 1: in tech, or just want to say hi? You can
Speaker 1: be us at Hello at tang godi dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangdi dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: Me bridget Toad. It's a production of iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer, Terry Harrison
Speaker 1: as our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Toad. If you want
Speaker 1: to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And then I have to Will wh