Knock LA

Series Introduction

My roots run deep in Los Angeles. I’m a second-generation Angeleno, raised in South Central LA, where the Black church shaped my life.

When Megyn Kelly questioned why a sexual assault survivor waited three weeks to report, I thought about my own forty-four years of silence. What began as one essay became a three-part series after a Knock LA editorial discussion.

Part One, “Three Weeks. 44 Years,” examines the sexual assaults I survived at 16 and the shame imposed by my church community.

Three weeks.

When I heard Megyn Kelly questioning why Jane Doe in the Cornell sexual assault case waited approximately three weeks to report the alleged rape, my reaction was immediate:

Are you f-ing kidding me?

Three weeks?

Try 44 years.

On July 21, 1982, I turned 16. My sweet 16 wasn’t so sweet.

I wasn’t expecting some extravagant celebration. We were a working-class family living in South Central Los Angeles, and there was a lot going on at home. Both my mother and stepfather worked. At the time of my 16th birthday, my mother was a registered nurse, pregnant with her fifth child, and my youngest sister was just six months old. As the oldest daughter, I was expected to shoulder household responsibilities.

I wasn’t expecting a party. I had maybe one or two friends, and I wasn’t particularly popular at church. Even if my mother had thought about throwing me a party, who would have come? I don’t remember whether I had a cake, though my mother usually baked one for our birthdays. Maybe people wished me a happy birthday. I just don’t remember feeling celebrated.

When I was 18, I saw Sixteen Candles in the theater. Watching Molly Ringwald’s character Samantha have her 16th birthday forgotten brought back memories of my own birthday, two years earlier. Samantha eventually got her fairy tale ending. The cute boy was waiting for her beside his fancy car. And there they were, sitting across from each other with a birthday cake between them, candles glowing, waiting for that perfect kiss.

There was no cute boy waiting for me in a fancy car. No birthday cake with candles glowing between us. No sweet kiss to end the night. Instead, on my 16th birthday, I was gang-raped.

According to the American Psychological Association, one in four Black girls is sexually abused before turning eighteen. I was 16. And my experience was far from unique.

I liked a cute boy, too. One of the cutest in our neighborhood, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me. Me? Of all people? By 16, I had already endured years of molestation and sexual assaults, more than any child should ever have to endure. And I wanted to be liked. When this boy invited me to his place, I was flattered.

We went into his bedroom. We were kissing; I still had my clothes on. We had not started having sex. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I worried that if I said no, he wouldn’t like me anymore.

I didn’t know he had friends hiding in the closet.

They came out. They held me down, pulled up my dress and tore off my underwear. I screamed no. They covered my mouth. I cried. I don’t remember how many boys there were. That isn’t the point. I said no. They held me down. I was gang-raped. When it was over, I was lying there. They ordered me to get up and go home. Get out.

They violated my body, betrayed my trust, and threw me away. I felt like trash. But the assault wasn’t the end of it. Those boys bragged that they had “run a train” on me. In their telling, it sounded like something I wanted. They had friends who attended my church, though the boys themselves did not. Their boasting traveled through those friendships into my church community.

Think about the pornographic fantasy of one woman with multiple men, supposedly enjoying every minute. That’s what their version of events suggested: a sexual conquest to share with their friends. But this wasn’t a fantasy. I was a child who had been raped. They got to brag. I got blamed.

I already had a reputation at church. I was a dark-skinned girl with short, natural, hot comb resistant hair, not somebody the other kids rushed to include. People had opinions about what kind of girl I was before those boys ever opened their mouths. Their boasting landed in a community where I was already judged. I was fast. I must have wanted it. Even if every rumor about me had been true, it wouldn’t have mattered. A girl’s reputation is not consent.

Childhood sexual abuse can complicate a young person’s understanding of affection, intimacy, and boundaries. For Black girls, those experiences unfold in a society that too often labels us sexually mature before we have even had a chance to be children. As Natasha Crooks writes in Ms. Magazine, those stereotypes can also make it harder for Black girls to be recognized as victims of sexual violence.

If I had wanted to report what happened, who was going to believe me? This was 1982. We weren’t having the conversations about date rape, coercion and consent like we’re having today. Girls heard, “boys will be boys,” and “your lips may say no, but your eyes say yes.” We learned to anticipate questions about our behavior before anyone asked about the behavior of the boys or men who harmed us.

That fear wasn’t mine alone. Forty-two years after my assault, the U.S. Department of Justice found that 76.4% of rape and sexual assault victimizations in 2024 were never reported to police. Researchers have documented reasons survivors hesitate, including shame, fear of retaliation, and fear of being blamed or not believed. Four decades later, those fears remain. What happens when telling the truth means risking being judged all over again?

Going into his bedroom wasn’t consent. Kissing him wasn’t consent. Even agreeing to sex with him would not have been consent to what his friends did.

In 1988, I also saw The Accused in the theater. The film showed a woman gang-raped while men watched and cheered, then judged for her drinking and flirting. Even the prosecutor initially sees her reputation as a problem. In 1991 when Desiree Washington testified against Mike Tyson, people questioned why she had entered his hotel room. Once again, attention shifted to the woman’s choices. Why did she go there? What did she expect?

I knew those questions long before I saw them on a movie screen or in a courtroom.

And this is where the Black church enters my story. I love the Black church I grew up in. It was politically aware and deeply connected to community life. But love doesn’t put an institution beyond criticism. James Baldwin wrote of loving America and insisting on the right to criticize it perpetually. That’s how I feel about the church. I don’t know what every adult at my church knew about my assault. I won’t pretend I do. But I know the story reached my church community, and I know how people treated me.

Who in the church was protecting the 16 year old girl?

That’s a question I’ll have to return to in another essay. Here, I want to return to Megyn Kelly and that three weeks comment.

Reporting to police, telling somebody privately, and choosing to tell a story publicly are not the same thing. A person can speak to a friend immediately and never file a report, or report an assault and never want to talk about it in public. Kelly herself has spoken about harassment she experienced at Fox News, including concerns she raised privately long before discussing the experience publicly. She deserved to choose when to tell her story. Why shouldn’t Jane Doe have that right?

It wasn’t until I started writing this essay that I read Jane Doe’s full account. I hadn’t needed to know the details to question Kelly’s remarks. But when I read them, I thought, “My God. Parts of this sound so much like what happened to me.”

According to reporting on Cornell’s investigation, Jane Doe initially agreed to sexual activity with two men. She alleged that additional men assaulted her without her consent. The accused deny wrongdoing, and those allegations must be examined fairly. But consenting to intimacy with one person, or even two, is not consent to everybody else. I went into that bedroom because I liked a boy. I hadn’t consented to what his friends did to me.

Her lawsuit also alleges that a fraternity member sent a Snapchat group message inviting other men upstairs. That allegation is contested. The boys who assaulted me had been hiding in a closet; afterward, they bragged about me to their friends. In 1982, there was no Snapchat. They didn’t need it. Word traveled just fine.

Thank God there was no social media then. I was having thoughts of suicide. I was struggling to survive the assault and the humiliation without strangers turning it into a public spectacle. Had social media existed, I genuinely believe I would not be here today. A 2024 study of Black adolescents found an association between online racial discrimination, traumatic stress symptoms and suicidal thoughts. I know what public humiliation did to me without a screen. I think about what Black girls face with one.

Over the decades, healing has taught me that the shame was never mine to carry. I’m writing this to change the narrative for myself and other Black girls and women. 

Today, I’m a published writer, an advocate, a wife, and a mother. I have a circle of friends who love and adore me. I’ve built a life that the 16 year old me could never have imagined.

People say time heals all wounds. I don’t believe that. Time passes, but it doesn’t automatically heal what happened. I’ve been working toward healing for several years, and that work continues. What began as a response to Megyn Kelly’s comments about the Cornell survivor became something much more personal. Writing this essay has brought me face to face with struggles I’ve carried for decades. Perhaps telling my story is another part of that healing.

So here’s what I’m asking.

The next time a woman or girl says she was sexually assaulted, stop making her explain why she didn’t report it sooner. Stop questioning what she wore, whom she liked, or why she went into someone’s bedroom. Ask her if she is safe. Ask what support she needs. And if she chooses to speak, listen without making her prove she was worthy of protection. That responsibility belongs to all of us, especially the families, churches, schools, and communities that claim to protect children. A girl’s reputation is not consent. And silence is not proof that nothing happened.

On July 21, 1982, I was 16 years old. I was a child, and I deserved better. 44 years later, I finally found my voice.

My name is Tracee Michelle Porter. And I am one of many Jane Doe’s.

Tracee Michelle Porter is a writer, lived experience expert, and advocate whose work centers the lives, voices, and experiences of Black women and girls. An alumna of fellowships in leadership, public policy, and writing, she examines how race, gender, economic injustice, and the criminal legal system shape their lives, using storytelling to challenge the systems that silence and fail to protect them.