Oh, I see. Thanks!

Hey Jax! Thank you so much for letting me know about this. I know that it's incredibly difficult and painful to come forward about abuse. I want people who are considering coming forward to know what we can do right now (bans, publicized statements, etc) and what we can't (publish the full results of the investigation) and what we're doing to change that (working on nonprofit status and liability insurance) so that they can figure out whether coming forward -- now or once we've obtained the liability insurance -- is the right call for them. I hope that victims will continue to feel willing to come forward. The panelists are volunteers and I don't think the fact that they cannot risk tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and being forced to reveal anonymous sources reflects that they don't care very much about women getting groomed and harassed -- just that the stakes are very high and obtaining that liability insurance is incredibly important for our ability to do our jobs on every case. I (or your contacts in the Vassar and Rettek investigations) would be happy to keep you updated about progress towards liability insurance. Let me know if that's something you'd value. One other point of clarification - there is an active investigation into allegations against Vassar and Rettek. People who have insight into the situation, including you, have been sent optional questions about their knowledge of the situation, which the panel wants to use to investigate more thoroughly. This does not mean you are being investigated. There will not be a verdict on you. It just means that, to the extent you are willing to participate, your perspective is one that is really valued for the investigation into them. I completely understand that testifying during an investigation can be an invasive, embarrassing and horrible experience. For past REACH cases I've talked with crisis lines, with counselors, and with victims, and it's extremely common to feel like you're the person being investigated. I'm so sorry that you're going through that. But I did want to clarify that you are not being investigated by REACH, in case that's at all reassuring to know.

I'm struggling with how to use examples here in a way that's helpful and doesn't oversimplify. I think I'm just going to use fictional examples that do oversimplify and then try to acknowledge the oversimplifications at the end. edit: to be clear, these are *not* examples of real REACH cases, fictionalized or otherwise. None of these are a fictionalization of the Brent, Rettek, or Vassar allegations, or of any other cases the REACH is investigating. I have no confidential information about ongoing cases. As I said, I struggled with how to use examples helpfully here, and I went with making up fake ones because it seemed the best balance of preserving privacy while getting relevant ideas across. In making up fake examples, I thought about things that have happened to me personally and to my family, and things I've read about community abuse and reconciliation processes in other communities. I've edited to try to make this clearer, because the last thing I'd want is for this to read as dishonestly indirect commentary on a real case. Ann and Beth dated eight years ago. Ann was emotionally abusive. When they broke up, Ann spent four years single, and then met and monogamously married Cat. Ann now sometimes brings their daughter to REACH events. Beth asks REACH to investigate Ann's emotional abuse. Ann says "yes, I was emotionally abusive towards Beth. It was the worst mistake of my life, and when we broke up I spent four years single before I was confident I had the emotional skills to not be abusive in a relationship. But now I'm not abusive - you can check in with Cat." We check with Cat, who agrees that Ann isn't abusive. This is an example of a case where if I were deciding the best resolution I would probably not ban Ann, or I would ban Ann only from events Beth wants to attend. Banning Ann causes innocent people (her family) significant harm, causes Ann harm when Ann has already worked very hard to improve her behavior, and does not appear to protect anyone (it sure won't help Cat to isolate her family from the community more). Another fictional example: Dave and Elsa have been dating. Dave frequently becomes suicidal and has twice attempted to kill himself. Elsa has been pressured into sex with Dave because of her fear that he'd die otherwise. Elsa wants to break up with Dave. Elsa doesn't think Dave should date anyone until he has dealt with his suicidality, but doesn't want Dave banned from his community because she's afraid that then he'll kill himself. If I were deciding what to do in this case, I'd figure out whether Dave is a risk to harm anyone in the community, or whether this behavior manifests only towards his romantic partner. If there is no pattern of Dave pressuring others, I'd probably want to resolve this by making the situation public to protect people from getting into Elsa's situation, but not by banning Dave. The ban doesn't seem like it makes anyone safer, and it's disrespectful of Elsa's wishes, and it seems likely to endanger Dave and endanger anyone else Dave starts dating. Ways in which these situations are oversimplifications: I'm pretending we know for sure all of the facts of the situation. In real cases, they're almost always disputed. I'm pretending that people have a simple attitude about what they want, when in reality people often want many contradictory things from a justice process. I'm pretending that there are no other affected parties, when often the testimony of friends and other acquaintances are quite important. I'm assuming that the people involved spend significant time and energy at REACH, which some people don't. I'm generally taking the sprawling messy frightening reality and trying to outline specific important features, and I don't know if that's the best thing to do but I hope it gives a sense for circumstances under which someone might conclude "these allegations are warranted, but a ban is a bad resolution".

Uh, no, abusing people is *really really bad*. Figuring out how to keep communities safe from abusers is pretty hard, and doesn't always look like "ban single parents from their source of daycare" or "ban homeless people from their source of a bed to sleep in when it's particularly cold" (yes, both real situations where people engaged in abuse and still needed community support that have really come up in the past two years, unrelated to the ones that have gotten publicity). I want to stop abuse. I want to create avenues for people who have done bad things and are no longer a danger to society to reintegrate with society. I want abuse victims to feel safe. I want spaces to prioritize the safety of victims.

Yo, this isn't the place for this. Take a day to cool off.

Can you *not*

I'm no fan of any of these people, but isn't this a legitimate concern? > REACH consulted an attorney about making the result of the Brent investigations public and were told that there was absolutely no way to do this without making each of the investigators individually liable in a defamation lawsuit. I’m also worried they could be sued to reveal the names of people who spoke to them anonymously in the course of the investigation.