Pride in the Shadow of Violence: An NVRDC Case Manager's Reflections

Two weeks and more have passed since the Pulse shooting ended the lives of 49 individuals out for Latin night at the Orlando LGBTQ nightclub, and there are those of us still feeling the heaviness of this vast loss of life and chilling act of aggression. Speculation on the shooter’s motive varies, but for those within the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer community it requires no leap to recognize it as an act of bias against us -- it is all too familiar, fits all too well in a long history of violence targeting sexual minorities for terror, marginalization and extinction.

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The Right To Be Heard: What the Stanford Survivor’s Letter Means for All Crime Victims

Since it was published on Palto Alto Online and BuzzFeed, Emily Doe’s letter to her assailant, Brock Turner, has been shared and read by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Her searing account of the upheaveal of her life since being sexually assaulted has sparked outrage at Turner’s mere 6-month prison sentence and ignited a national conversation about how our criminal legal system handles sexual violence and what we can do to support survivors.

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