Resources for Sexual Assault Survivors and Allies

Compiled by Dawn Finley, F.L.O.W. Library Co-founder and one of our resident Librarians

Online

This list is pretty helpful–it includes several hotlines but also lots of nonprofits and agencies across the country for tackling survival from several different angles: https://greatist.com/live/sexual-assault-survivor-resources

QTPoC Mental Health also has a great website with survivor-focused blogs, in addition to other discussions of self care from a queer/trans POC perspective: https://restforresistance.com/

FORGE has resources particularly for trans/nonbinary folx: https://forge-forward.org/anti-violence/for-survivors/guides-for-survivors/ And NCTE has this guide on rights/protections: https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/survivors-violence

In Print

As for books, there’s a pretty huge range, depending on what’s needed, but here are a few:

Ellen Bass’ The Courage to Heal has been in print a long time–Roxane Gay mentions it in her book Hunger, which is itself a book in no small part about survival of rape–and although it now seems a bit dated I think people still find it helpful.

Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino edited a volume of survivor stories in 2016 called We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out, and in 2014 AK Press published Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence.

F.L.O.W. has a zine called Survivor Zine from Feminism Static and Hush Baby Collective on sexual violence, as well as one called Speak Out: A Zine Exploring Gendered Violence from Santa Cruz, and an edition of bluestockings magazine titled “Silence + voice: Sexual assault at Brown.”

There’s also Sohaila Abdulali’s 2018 What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape which includes the author’s experience as a rape victim in Mumbai, and Cindy Crabb’s Support: Feminist Relationship Tools to Heal Yourself and End Rape Culture.

One more book to add, especially for allies or for those who have not experienced violence or assault, might be Roxane Gay’s new edited volume, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture.

F.L.O.W. has The Courage to Heal, We Believe You, Dear Sister, and What we talk about on the shelves right now, as far as I know.