Justice Is Not Partisan
There are seasons when trauma feels louder.
I’ve written a lot about politics lately, and I don’t particularly enjoy doing it. But sometimes public testimony collides directly with personal history. Sometimes what is said in a hearing room reverberates in the nervous systems of people who have already lived through enough.
Yesterday’s testimony by the U.S. Attorney General regarding the handling of cases connected to Jeffrey Epstein felt like one of those moments.
During the hearing, a representative invited several of Epstein’s victims to attend. He asked for an apology. He asked why individuals appearing on associated documents were not being investigated. The response from the Attorney General characterized the exchange as political theatrics.
If you are a survivor of sexual assault, that word lands like a slap.
“Theatrics” suggests performance.
“Theatrics” suggests exaggeration.
“Theatrics” suggests the suffering of real people is merely optics.
And that is where I struggle.
Investigate. Period.
I don’t care who is on any list.
If a person committed sexual assault — adult or child — they should be investigated. If evidence supports prosecution, they should be prosecuted. Full stop. That standard should apply regardless of party affiliation, wealth, celebrity, or office.
When accountability appears selective, the message to survivors is unmistakable: justice is conditional.
It begins to look less like caution and more like protection.
And that perception — fair or not — erodes trust in the very institutions survivors are told to rely upon.
The Cost of Empathy Deficit
I want to share a passage that captured something I have struggled to articulate:
“I wonder how a human being finds themselves sitting in that chair in front of the watching world in a moment of such gravity, so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability.
But as the father of a daughter, I want you to know that I fully detest what you are doing to so many other people’s children right now.
I abhor your callous disregard for the daughters who stood courageously before you today, whose eyes you did not have the dignity to look into; women whose cavernous hell you know full well, because you’ve pored over it countless times in words, photos, and videos.
It sickens me to my core to know that thousands of survivors, girls and young women not unlike my daughter, have experienced unspeakable horrors and are finding in you, not a fierce and willing advocate, not a steadfast warrior who will deliver them justice, but a shame-throwing avatar of the men who brutalized them.”
That quote isn’t partisan. It’s parental. It’s human.
And it resonates because empathy is not optional in positions of power.
Survivors Are Not Optics
As a survivor, what unsettles me most is not even the political calculus. It’s the tone.
When institutions gut sexual harassment policies…
When reporting pathways quietly disappear…
When sexual assault becomes something litigated through party loyalty rather than moral clarity…
Survivors hear one thing:
“You are inconvenient.”
That message compounds harm.
And before anyone says this is one-sided — it is not. If someone in the opposing party committed assault, prosecute them too. Accountability is not red or blue. The door swings both ways.
Justice cannot depend on who benefits.
What Survivors Actually Need
We do not need theatrics.
We do not need performative outrage.
We do not need selective investigations.
We need:
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Consistent enforcement.
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Transparent investigation.
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Policies that protect victims, not institutions.
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Leaders who understand that empathy is not weakness.
And yes — male survivors exist. They are often dismissed or mocked. Ask the “Corys” of 1980s Hollywood. Ask the men whose careers were threatened by Harvey Weinstein. Silence protects predators. It always has.
Ten Minutes
I am not advocating harm against anyone.
But I sometimes wonder what would change if decision-makers were required to spend ten minutes inside a survivor’s nervous system.
Ten minutes of hypervigilance.
Ten minutes of intrusive memory.
Ten minutes of shame that never belonged to them in the first place.
Perhaps then “theatrics” would feel different.
I Am Tired of Feeling Less Safe
I don’t like writing political posts. I truly don’t.
But when the nation’s top law enforcement official appears dismissive about sexual assault investigations, it lands personally. It makes me — and many others — feel less safe.
Justice should not depend on allegiance.
Protection should not depend on polling.
Empathy should not depend on party.
Don’t just say you support survivors.
Mean it.