Remember the Nameless Ones

Fridays in Trumpland: 7.18.2025

This week, I have come back over and over again to an essay I wrote more than four years ago about the exploitation of teenaged girls by powerful men.

In the seven or so years this Substack has been here, it is one of my most read essays, perhaps because it talks about what it’s like to be the girl who is exploited, abused, dehumanized and tossed away— to be forgotten on the benches of history when powerful men escape justice and are never brought to account.

We’re in an interesting moment this week in our national trajectory, as Trump’s coverup of his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein has led to the shattering of MAGA support and caused the White House to take the unprecedented action of releasing a negative medical diagnosis of the president in an attempt to distract from his criminal involvement in a sex trafficking ring.

All survivors this week are being retraumatized as we watch attempts to hide, evade and deny criminal accountability, and the news of what the evidentiary record contains just gets worse and worse and worse.

As we process this individual and collective harms, and we wait to see what the outcome of this unprecedented, Black Swan-level event might be to Trump’s future, it’s profoundly important that we don’t forget those who are still to this day being ignored, forgotten and dehumanized.

My heart today is with all the victims of Epstein and his friends, many of whose names we will never know, who will forever carry the impact of the harm he and his friends caused.

And to all survivors: if you are in need of support, please don’t hesitate to contact RAINN at 800-656-4673.