[NABS-L] Caring concerns from James and Susan Gashel

[Sarah Meyer]

content warning: this message includes mentions of sexual misconduct.

Good afternoon,
I am sharing the following response from a fellow survivor  to the supposed ”caring” concerns of James and Susan Gashel. to be clear, I am sharing this to stand in solidarity with my dear friend and survivor sister.This is not a statement or response relating to my recent role as a member of the interim Survivor-Led Task Force. She has given me her explicit and freely given,  affirmative consent to share her thoughts. To be clear, I am sharing this as a friend, Ally, fellow survivor, and as an NFB  member. I applaud her courage and being able to speak up about these matters as a part of her healing journey.

”It is utterly delusional to claim that you stand and support survivors in victims!  Every single word you wrote in your report was nothing less than incredibly insulting!  I am 37 years old.  I have been in this organization since I was 22.  When this social media campaign broke out in December, my case of being molested during general session as a 2005 scholarship winner was splashed all over the Internet without my permission or prior knowledge.  In both my 2005 and 2018 incidences, I was molested for hours in a public setting.  Both perpetrators were leaders in the federation who clearly knew exactly what they were doing!  Both individuals actively worked directly with minors.  To imply that victims and survivors are Creating some sort of old witch hunt is despicable.   Every single argument you illustrated regarding this issue is exactly why rape victims and other sexual assault victims choose to not ever come forward!  I was brought into this mess also because it was discovered that my code of conduct complaint filed in 2018 for another incident was grossly miss handled.  Though he attempted to checkboxes, my state president was very clearly fully in support of my perpetrator.  The investigator approached me to explore and examine how my case was handled.  My case is one of only thousands of examples of why an impartial investigator needs to be brought in to impartially determine best steps of action.  I believe you know this already though.  This is why you lump the code of conduct issue with the federation’s shifted focus on creating divisions which could be argued have nothing to do with our blindness mission.  In order to gain traction for your bidder vendetta you needed to bring in another issue that has been boiling under the surface for years.  As you paint those of us who have been sexually humiliated by fellow members we believed we could trust as “troublemakers,” allow me to give you a glimpse of what many of us have dealt with these last few months.  Instead of being the fully-involved mother my small children are accustomed to, I have suffered severe daily panic attacks (chest pains, difficulty breathing, involuntary teeth chattering, disassociation, dizziness) just to scratch the surface.  This doesn’t even account for my sleepless nights, difficulty keeping food down and more.  Instead of attempting to contribute to the discussion with innovative ideas, you attempt to blow the whole thing up.
You are correct that there are a number of urgent blindness issues we need to be tackling, but how is this effective when at least 69 members of our movement do not feel safe?  How do we reach out to the parents of blind children and share our guidance and resources when we cannot assure them that they or their children will be safe during one of our programs?”

In solidarity and commitment to Federation  safe,

Sarah

Sent from the  iPhone of Sarah Meyer