Rachael Denhollander knows just how terrifying it is to publicly accuse a powerful man of sexual assault, anticipating that many people won’t believe the story. “If my alleged abuser was named Kavanaugh, not Nassar, what would you have said to me?” Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State team doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse, tweeted on Monday morning. Since 2016, Denhollander had led the accusations against Nassar, encouraging hundreds of other survivors to tell their stories of abuse at the hands of the former doctor, who’s now serving a life sentence on child sexual abuse charges. Now, she’s questioning Republicans’ response to the sexual assault accusation that has surfaced against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. “And that showed me what they REALLY thought about abuse and what they REALLY thought about victims, when sexual abuse wasn’t an easy thing to condemn.

Source: Huffington Post September 17, 2018 14:26 UTC