This is about the soul of the Indiana Democratic Party. Who we really are when it counts.
I have spent my entire adult life working to advance the ideals of the Indiana Democratic Party.
I’ve poured my time, expertise, reputation, and heart into electing Democrats. I’ve defended policies I believed in. I’ve protected the people who proclaim to protect the rest of us. I helped build campaigns from the ground up, mentored staffers, trained interns, and gave everything I had to the belief that this party could be a force for justice.
At the June 9 Indianapolis City-County Council meeting, in the very chamber where I have sat as a professional, policy advisor, and believer in public service, I was dragged out and groped by law enforcement at the direction of those very Democrats I once helped into office. All of them watched. Some turned away. Others remained silent. None of them intervened.
It wasn’t because I had harmed someone, disrupted democracy, or posed a threat to anyone’s safety. It was because I had the audacity to demand accountability for survivors of sexual assault harmed within our own party’s infrastructure and city hall. Survivors who put their trust in us, in me, because we told them we were the party of women’s rights that believed in bodily autonomy. Because we said we were different.
I worked for the Senate Democratic Caucus for nearly a decade. I fought like hell for their policies, districts, and image.
I was not just politically or professionally invested in the people who watched me, in person and online, be removed. I had been to their weddings. Their baby showers. I’ve shown up at their doors when they lost loved ones. I’ve mentored their children. I’ve contributed to their campaigns. I’ve canvassed their districts, written speeches, edited press releases, and gone on television to defend their records, often sacrificing my own time in the process.And now, when I’ve needed them most, hardly any of those officials have picked up the phone to check on my well-being. When my image — my body — was plastered all over the news, groped by law enforcement’s hands, there was overwhelming silence.
Not even the Chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, a woman I once called a mentor. A woman I believed, deeply, shared my commitment to safe, accountable, inclusive workplaces. A woman who has publicly acknowledged that workplace harassment in politics is no surprise.
They’ve all asked me to keep going — not because they don’t see what this is costing me, but because they know the truth:If someone like me — who’s spent two decades building relationships, delivering results, and holding confidences — can be tossed aside for daring to speak up… what does that say to every survivor working quietly within our systems? What does that say to our neighbors living at the margins, without titles, connections or political capital?
What does that say about who we are?
Imagine that it wasn’t me that night — someone who benefits from whiteness, who is straight and cisgender — but a queer Black woman. A trans organizer. An undocumented survivor. Instead of being a white Hispanic woman, a brown woman. Or someone with no media presence, connections, or political history to soften the blow. I know for a fact there were people of color prepared to testify that night. They saw what happened to me and stayed silent — because they knew it would be worse for them.
That is what is at stake right now.
