Reunion Online

Resilience is a remarkable characteristic we humans possess.

Never in my wildest hopes would I have imagined sitting in a rental car, at the intersection of 45th and Broadway, watching an electronic billboard on the Viacom building announcing “NO MORE that doesn’t happen to guys,” “NO MORE he just needs to get over it,” “NO MORE we don’t talk about that,” and so on…

We’ve all heard the dismissive refrains—things like “that doesn’t happen to guys,” “what kind of guy would let that happen to him,” or “he seems just fine to me.”

Both Trav and I can say that while child sex abuse will always color our shared life, it will never exclusively define either of us.

Today, we're giving an inside look at our most recent ENDTHEBACKLOG newsletter for our email subscribers. Today's topics: a new $41M proposed in the federal budget, what we think belongs in comprehensive rape kit legislation, laws being considered in 18 states and more.

Today I had the honor and privilege of testifying before the Hawai‘i State Legislature’s House Committee on Human Services in support of House Bill 1907, which would establish a system for tracking rape kits and mandate a deadline for the crime lab to process the evidence.

I already knew the story of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s investigation of the Archdiocese of Boston’s cover-up of sexual abuse by scores of its priests. I knew most of the characters. I even caught a glimpse of the name of the priest who sexually abused me back in the mid-1960s. But what moved me most was two boys sitting near me in the theater of the Spotlight film recently.

The Super Bowl 50 NO MORE ad highlights that recognizing the signs of abuse can potentially help someone. It demonstrates how starting a conversation that might help change—or even save—someone’s life begins with each of us.

On Monday November 2, 2015 I completed my book Healing the Man Within. A friend of mine asked me how long it took me to write the book. “Forty-six-years,” I told him. “It has been forty-six-years in the making.”

It has been a remarkable to play a part in the rapidly expanded understanding of the importance of responding to the needs of men and boys who’ve experienced abuse and assault. And it’s been humbling realizing that the distance we've traveled has been in many ways in the shadow and on the shoulders of others who have gone before us.