#hovt

“I’m just trying to be a better person: I go to work on time; I do all of my homework, all of my classwork; I even floss twice a day. But like... what’s the point? What’s it all worth if I can’t go home at the end of the day and play Club Penguin?”

[The following content may contain sensitive information regarding sexual assault.] [2/3] “A week after I was raped, my community, the Residential Leadership Community, decided I was lying. I don't know how they could believe that; I was a mess, I was too scared to leave my room, I was hysterically crying. I didn’t sleep for 96 hours. Then my community adopted the attitude of 'We have to stop her before she ruins this stranger's life'. Me, their friend, who never lied to them - I became nothing to them. When they told my parents against my wishes, I was hysterically sobbing in my room, and people in my dorm had their ear up to the door, trying to figure out what I was saying. I'm sure the ambience of my wails made a memorable experience as people I considered to be my closest friends sat next door, debating whether or not he penetrated me, with people I hadn’t told. My roommate said 'Stop acting like you're the victim here, I'm so done with you.' I found out later that they contacted my rapist to try to confirm whether or not he raped me. I had to prepare for my former friends to be used as witnesses against me in court when I went to the hearing to get my permanent protective order. Just fresh from being raped, I had to anticipate and practice with a lawyer for my story to be torn apart by people I confided in and thought I could trust. They turned my pain and made it their pleasure, because I was the hottest gossip of Peddrew-Yates, the girl who's lying about being raped right? It was the faces of those I considered friends in the RLC that I saw in my nightmares when I relived my rape, night after night. Two hundred people in my dorm, and not a single one stood up for me. My victim blamers continued to traumatize me for months afterwards. They posed for pictures taking the oath to not victim blame, to not rape, but I was raped, and they abandoned me and antagonized me. I consider the level of violation by my community to be my second rape. I thought when I reported what he did, when he was expelled from Virginia Tech and lost his full ride scholarship, that I ruined his life. I only set him back two semesters. Now he's at another college, wrestling, doing pre-vet, and he can pretend like nothing ever happened. The worst part is that he's out there hurting other girls. I know I’m not his only victim, I know that I wasn’t his last. But I wasn't strong enough to stop him. I'm so sorry to his other victims, I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop him. It destroyed me to get the meager justice that I thought I got, and for what? I sat there at 3am terrified of him, terrified to go to sleep, terrified of the nightmares, terrified of myself, mourning what I had lost. When I went home over the summer I punched a hole in the wall in my sleep, countless nights of screaming, of waking up to bruises and not knowing how I got them. I took showers constantly, trying to scrub him off my skin, because I couldn’t forget where he touched me. I wore baggy clothes, long sleeves, and long pants because I didn’t want people’s eyes molesting my body, looking at me the way my rapist looked at me. The level of pain I went through, nobody should ever have to go through that ever. But throughout this pain, there are these moments of incredible human caring and kindness. In my darkest days, I found strangers who cared for me more than people I called friends did. I found humanity, hope and healing, from people who stepped up because I was worth being loved, because my rape did not make me undeserving of being treated like a human being. I could have started over anywhere else, but I started over here. This my school, I chose to come here and I chose to stay here. Every single day after making that decision was hard, haunted with the memories, the pain associated with places. But this is where I belong. It was people like my Russian professor, and one of my political science professors who said, 'I believe in you, you can do this, you can be successful' that really kept me going. So I'm here, and I have a mission. I want to make sure that this doesn't happen to anybody else because nobody else should go through this.”

[The following content contains strong language.] [2/2] "Afterwards was probably the most painful semester of my life and I just hate that my grades reflect that so badly. In these random moments, I would be in the middle of a lecture and I would feel like I had to cry right then and there. I would end up fighting off anxiety attacks on my way to class. I didn't know why that happened to me. All I had were these flashes in the back of my head going all day all night, non-stop. I had to take sleeping pills so I could finally fucking sleep. I still get scared walking into my major's building and signing up for classes because the chances of seeing him are so high since one of my majors is so small. It took me a month and a half to finally open up and tell someone about it. When I did, I was told that I deserved it, because that's what I get for hanging around white men. That I deserve it because I was wearing a low cut top, because I'm pretty and that's what men want from me. I couldn't even report it because his father is so influential that if I did, every court case would be rigged. He also has a history of counter suing every girl that presses charges against him – a history of winning. I know that my parents love me so much that they would probably sue the shit out of him. It's just something I couldn't do to my family, and I couldn't do to myself, because I would have to admit to my parents what happened. They would probably tell me that I deserved it too. The worst part was that not only did he fulfill his promise that he was gonna ruin my life; all these rumors started popping up that I’m a whore and that I'm a slut. I'm just a [race] bitch and I ‘put out all the time.’ I didn't know where these rumors came from. It spread to the point where I don't even feel safe walking into the community center or Squires anymore. The people in charge of the community are the same ones that have called me a bitch and a slut, constantly. At Gobblerfest this year, some random frat guy yelled out, ‘Nice T.N.A. [Tits n’ Ass], whore!’ at me. Someone else called me ‘loose’ and a ‘thot’ at Gobblerfest too. I get random guys sliding into my Instagram messages at weird times of the night; they would say they did it on a dare from their friends. I don't even know who they are. When I go out to parties, random guys I don’t know who know my name and what I look like will grope, grab, and kiss me and try to make me come home with them. There are ‘friends’ out there who have information and evidence of them saying this about me on social media on their phones, yet they refuse to give it to me. They know I would press charges against the people spreading these rumors. I'm even more stuck because clearly they value their friendship with some fucking guy over the safety of what used to be their best friend. I'm just glad I have a year left until I graduate."

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In the following week, we will be sharing the stories of survivors at Virginia Tech, and the stories of other members of the community who are working to fight sexual assault.

“I moved to the US from Mongolia when I was 11 years old. My mom’s friend had already settled in America and she helped us get an apartment and move into our own place. We were above the legal limit of people that were supposed to be in one bedroom because there were four of us and so our landlord called the police on us. It was a shocking moment because we never expected the police to knock on our doors and we couldn't communicate with them. They were intimidating. So we ended up moving out and into a different place which was difficult since my parents didn’t have stable jobs yet. It took about 3 months and during that time we lived in our mom’s coworkers house till we finally were able to move into our own place. The language barrier was a difficulty when we first moved. None of my family members spoke English. My sister and I had a chance to go to school and learn English but my parents weren't able to learn it well. And I feel sad in a way because it prevents my parents from showing their great personality and express themselves. I see them treated badly because of racism. They can’t say anything back because they don’t understand it. Sometimes, when I am back in Mongolia, I feel American and when I'm in America I feel Mongolian. I have this identity crisis going on. I am like a hybrid cultured kid. I feel American when I'm there because people can be pretty closed-minded over there since it’s a really homogeneous population. People are not very exposed to diversity like the LGBT community, different races, or backgrounds. But here I feel Mongolian because people are more individualistic so it seems like if something doesn't go your way, there is no one to blame but yourself. In Mongolia people consider other factors when things don't go their way. Also in America, I feel more in touch with my Mongolian side because there you never really think 'Wow I'm Mongolian' due to the lack of diversity. I am really happy about this identity crisis because it puts everything into perspective and maybe I would not be the same person I am today if it weren’t for my parents seeking better opportunities for my sister and me."

"I moved here almost three years ago from Libya. Three days after I left, the airport blew up and turned to ashes. It was burned to the ground because of a militia war, so I haven't been able to go back since then. This July, it's going to be rebuilt. Friends and family have been asking me if I'm coming back, and I had to explain to them the whole politics thing — I cannot come back because I will not be able to be let into the United States, and even though I'm an American citizen, I just can't take that risk with my life. For a year now, my mother has been saving up money to help her sister in Libya pay for a wedding. It's all figured and set now, but my mother, who is not an American citizen, can't attend the wedding anymore this July because she wouldn't be able to come back to the US. A lot of people think that the whole idea of the ban sounds like an abstract idea because you don't meet people every day that are severely affected by it. When I talk to other people about the ban, some people justify it and say it's reasonable for X, Y and Z, and then when I talk about my personal experience with it, they tend to backtrack and reconsider their points." [This interview was conducted during the first version of "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States" executive order.]

“When I was 16, I met this woman who was a senior — I married her. She was just 18 years old. We were married for twelve years before we divorced. I hadn’t seen her for 40 years. Then, just the other day, she pulled up right by here. So, I’ll just stand here and wait again till she comes back. I still love her.”

“I used to have friends who lived here, so I took an early retirement from working finance in New York to move to Blacksburg. Eventually, all my friends passed away, so I started working again. I like what I’m doing now — greeting and calling students by their names. They keep me motivated and occupied. It’s what I look forward to when I come to work. They really make my day.”