Dear Katie: Survivor Stories

Re:wind to Re:process Track S6E2 White House Sidewalk Sit-in

Speak truth to power with the incredible Jon Vaugh and Josh Rubin in this 2024 episode of Dear Katie. 

This week we share the powerful voices of Jon Vaughn and Josh Rubin. Jon Vaughn made waves around the world as one of the few to publicly speak out against the abuse of University of Michigan doctor Robert Anderson in 2020, leading over 1000 survivors in a lawsuit against the university that settled in 2022. Today, he is a testament to the power of speaking out and advocating for what is right against all odds. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producer: Emily Wang

S8E1 Military Betrayal of Male Victims

Rashan Legard is an International Motivational Speaker, Veteran, Storyteller, Poet, and Credentialed Survivor Advocate who strongly desires to create change in individuals and organizations. Through his company, Rashan Legard Speaks LLC, Rashan shares his message to a broader audience by providing powerful presentations and coaching infused with his personal experience to organizations around the world. By focusing on Resiliency Programs, Emasculation, Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention, Rashan helps organizations improve their training and effectiveness while bringing awareness to these critical issues. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E25 Healing TREE Pathways Forward from Trauma: EDMR and More

Stephanie Mangan has been a Trauma Expert/Consultant for the past 16 years. Working with individuals who have experienced the highest levels of abuse and trauma, including but not limited to sexual violence, complex PTSD, sex trafficking, and substance abuse, Stephanie is passionate about helping individuals lead a life of healing and resiliency through a trauma-informed lens. More recently, she has also worked at the macro level through the non-profit Healing TREE, providing consulting services to film and arts professionals, ensuring their projects are trauma-informed and appropriate for their audiences/viewers. She also provides consulting for organizations seeking to bring in a Trauma Expert who identifies ways to apply trauma-informed business practices. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E24 Meet NO MORE's CEO Pamela Zaballa

'When you look at it, in the bigger spectrum, we can talk about this [...] I mean, fifteen years ago, a high-schooler wouldn't be talking to you about consent.'

Pamela Zaballa has dedicated over 20 years to advancing support systems for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Her career spans various roles in the US and UK, including frontline services, shelter development, advocacy, children's services, and setting up programs for human trafficking victims. Pamela’s work also encompasses policy and communications, where she has developed multiple successful action-based campaigns.

As the Global Chief Executive of NO MORE, a foundation dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence, Pamela has been a trailblazer in finding comprehensive solutions to gender-based violence. She has fostered strategic partnerships such as the development of Commonwealth Says NO MORE and consultancy services for various governments, international organizations, and global corporations, aiming to unify efforts against domestic and sexual violence. Notably, Pamela developed the NO MORE Global Directory—the first global directory providing contacts for domestic and sexual violence support in over 200 countries—and has worked on award-winning public awareness campaigns like #listeningfromhome, which gained extensive exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Find out about NO MORE here. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

Re:wind to Re:process Track S2E14 Sisterhood Synergy (Expert Episode: Salamishah and Scheherazade Tillet)

Review this classic episode featuring Salamishah and Scheherazade Tillet on making black survivors visible. 

Sisters can either be torn apart or drawn together due to sexual violence. Rutgers professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Salamishah Tillet and her sister, artist and curator Scheherazade Tillet, drew together after Salamishah shared her rape story. Together they co-founded "A Long Walk Home" to help Black women and girls share their own stories of shame, dysmorphia, injustice, recognizing trigger issues, survival, managing memories, finding community, and locating resources for recovering.

Hosts: Claire Kaplan and Katie Koestner

Editor: Craig Stanton

Producer: Emily Wang

S7E23 People Are Talking: Meet Author Amanda Eisenberg

Journalist Amanda Eisenberg shares her experiences reporting on sexual violence, informing us about her obligations as a journalist as well as her practices to ensure the safety of survivor interviewees. A Manhattan-based writer, her debut novel, People Are Talking, was released in April. She was inspired to write her book, which deals with sexual misconduct on a college campus, from her journalistic experience. Amanda hopes her novel will spark conversation among young adults around consent and how to critically engage men who have committed sexual misconduct, while also entertaining readers.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Emily Wang and Catrina Aglubat

S7E22 Finding Shameless Sexuality

'If I feel awful and disgusting, then I'm going to put on a mask.'

Exploring the psychological depths of sexual shame, Dr. Tina Sellers shares cutting-edge research on the cycles of guilt that inhibit our relationships. Bringing to light how our judgements can prevent us from living freely, she provides insight into how to heal from this shame and raise children who feel confident and assertive for their safety. 

Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers is a licensed sex and gender feminist psychotherapist, best-selling author, researcher, emeritus professor, and media personality whose expertise spans sex therapy, spiritual intimacy, parenting, medicine, and social justice. Her revolutionary perspectives have been expressed on platforms such as Spirituality & Health, Refinery 29, Vocal, Medium, and Bust Magazines, along with many podcasts, radio, news, and TV outlets. Known for exposing the impact of patriarchy and sexual shame on our ability to securely attach to our partners, and instruct our children to attach to theirs, Dr. Sellers’ book Sex, God, & the Conservative Church – Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy has had a global impact. Her latest book, Shameless Parenting – Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident Kids and Heal Your Shame Too! was a New Release Bestseller in eight categories. She speaks worldwide on healing and raising shame-free, relationally confident children. In 2015, Dr. Sellers founded the Northwest Institute on Intimacy, a post-graduate institute to train psychotherapists, educators, clergy, and physicians in sexual health, healing sexual shame and trauma, and understanding their sexual biases. In 2023, Tina founded InannaRising.org: a private membership community for psychedelic-assisted therapists and medical providers to get ongoing clinical consultation, collaboration, training, and support in creating scholarships for the under-resourced, and participation in an indigenous reparation fund.

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

S7E21 Understanding Trauma from Prisons to Veterans

'Most people are good people... [they] most of the time have just been through horrific trauma.'

Dr. Renee Rosiecki is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in trauma-informed care. She has worked in various settings, including non-profits, correctional facilities, outpatient behavioral health, a hospital system, and a medication-assisted treatment facility. Her work has focused on survivors, from responding to college crises as an RA to serving as a Confidential Sexual Violence Advocate for a community Sexual Assault Response Team. Renee believes in justice for all victims of violence, including those who are incarcerated, and she continues to fight to make this justice a reality. 

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang

Re:wind to Re:process Track S2E6 Centered Safety (Special Guest: Aishah Shahidah Simmons)

Listen and learn from our fantastic special guest in this classic interview on the Dear Katie Podcast. 

In this week's episode, Claire and Katie sit down with Aishah Shahidah Simmons to discuss her survivorship, and the trauma and healing that would develop her artistic voice. Aishah’s lived experiences as a survivor of childhood and adult sexual violence, a Black feminist lesbian, and a long-term Buddhist practitioner inform the creation of her work.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons (she/her) is the creator of the 2006 groundbreaking Ford Foundation-funded film, NO! The Rape Documentary, and the editor of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse.  Presently, she is a Soros Media Fellow completing her trilogy of cultural work that uses storytelling as a praxis to heal from, disrupt, and end sexual violence without relying on the carceral state.

Hosts: Katie Koestner and Claire Kaplan

Editor: Kelsey Styles

Producers: Kelsey Styles and Emily Wang

S7E20 Quantum Leap Healing

'The body just reignites the horrible experience. It's just like you're there.'

Sanar Alixandyr is an Empowerment Coach whose mission is to uplift, support, and heal the planet by empowering those who are ready to step into their greatness and become their most powerful, authentic selves. Her passion is being of service to the greater vision of the transformation and evolution of women in the world and offers her own story, "Becoming Sanar" From Shadow to Light: A Journey of Self-Discovery, as an inspirational and healing experience for anyone who is ready to let go of their own personal past.
A Woman of Wisdom, Sanar was once described as a member of the First Wave of Healers to embark on this mission. She is happy to share her wisdom with those who are searching and finds it remarkable that she is discovering a whole New Wave of powerful women, ready to shine their Light and change the world!

Host: Katie Koestner

Editor: Evan Mader

Producers: Catrina Aglubat and Emily Wang