I didn’t set out to study the neurobiology of predators. I got there by surviving them.

My interest in this work comes from a long history of being harmed by people in power, capped by what is known as “The Dr. Goldstein Special,” a form of medicalized Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). What followed was years of stonewalling and betrayal by the hospital and the Delaware Department of Justice. So, I started looking beyond the individual abusers to the systems that protect them.

Reading the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigation of sex abuse in medicine opened my eyes further. Over and over, the same story: doctors harm patients for years or decades while administrators and licensing boards neglect to act, protecting hospital image and abusers instead of their victims. This is the dark side of medicine, and the distribution of predators is concentrated where access to targets is high and accountability is low or absent.

I encountered the same dynamic with the US Coast Guard. In 2017, a member of the Coast Guard sexually assaulted me after assisting our disabled vessel. The perpetrator even had the impunity to post a photo of the assault in progress on a USCG news site. The Coast Guard has done nothing. That man walks free, still in uniform, still a threat, because the institution chose silence over accountability, just like the gynecologist who’s still cutting women.

I’ve learned that predators don’t just slip through the cracks. They are fostered by systems designed to protect them. Viewing these assaults at the systems level shows they normalize violence and pathologize those who suffer because of it.

I keep talking about it because this is how sick systems treat people. Trauma Aware America’s Predator Week is about telling the truth, resisting publicly and collectively to expose, connect, and fight back with clarity.

You’re invited. Join Trauma Aware America on Facebook for Predator Week, July 20-26