You’re Not Alone: Reimagining Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault | Tracy DeTomasi
Episode 40
In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Tracy DeTomasi, CEO of Callisto and a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience in gender-based violence prevention and survivor advocacy. Tracy shares how Callisto’s encrypted technology is creating a groundbreaking pathway for survivors to connect, reclaim their power, and pursue justice on their own terms.
We explore:
How Callisto uses encryption to safely connect survivors of serial perpetrators
Why knowing “you’re not alone” can be life-changing for healing and justice
The ripple effects of the MeToo movement and how it intersects with Callisto’s mission
What enthusiastic consent really means and why coercion is often overlooked
The cultural and systemic shifts needed to end serial perpetration
The role of boundaries, resilience, and survivor agency in trauma recovery
Tracy’s wisdom bridges advocacy, technology, and healing, reminding us that justice begins with empowerment and survivor choice.
⏱️ Chapters
00:00 – The power of encrypted technology for survivors
07:00 – A story of healing through connection
11:20 – Me Too, media, and the need for safer systems
16:40 – Redefining sexual assault and coercion
25:00 – Building Callisto with survivor-centered ethics
33:00 – Boundaries, resilience, and life after trauma
📌 Resources & Links
Learn more about Callisto: projectcallisto.org
Watch Jess Michaels’ TED Talk (referenced in this episode)
☕ Support the podcast on Buy Me a Coffee
If you haven’t already, it would mean the world to me if you subscribe, and if you learned something new or found inspiration from this episode, please leave a review and share this episode. Until next time, take care of your mind, body, and soul.
Tracy DeTomasi (00:00.056)
We have built encrypted technology to help connect survivors of serial perpetrators. A lot of times when survivors are sexually assaulted, they wonder if their perpetrators harmed somebody else. It's a question that through the 25 years that I've done this work, they wonder. She said that her life had changed the moment that they knew that they weren't alone. And that is so powerful because whether or not we hold perpetrators accountable, which we know that we will and we have,
But regardless of that, that power to know that drinking didn't cause you to be assaulted.
Jess Vanrose
Hi Tracy, welcome to Life After Trauma. I'm really grateful to have you here. Tracy De Tomasi is the CEO of Callisto and a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of leadership and trauma-informed work. She's a global changemaker who helped shape U.S. domestic violence laws and has developed innovative tech-based tools to prevent gender-based violence.
From educational apps to virtual reality training, her deep expertise bridges the worlds of advocacy, technology, and survivor empowerment, making her a powerful voice in the movement to reimagine justice. Thank you so much for being here, Tracy.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad I could join. Yeah.
Jess Vanrose (01:18.626)
Tracy, you're not just leading a tech company, you're building something that intersects deeply with trauma, healing, and justice. What has this journey taught you about holding space for stories that are often silen-
Wow, such a good question. There's so much there. So I have been doing work in gender-based violence for 25 years. It's where I started my career and I took over as the CEO of Callisto three years ago. And it was because the technology is so incredible. It's so innovative and it's so necessary. And I think that it can make such a massive change in our culture when we give it the time to actually work. And so I can just talk a little bit about what the technology does. And I think that that will kind of
backwards lead into the answer to your question. And so at Callisto, we have built encrypted technology to help connect survivors of serial perpetrators. And so a lot of times, you when I say that people are like, what does that mean? So a lot of times when survivors are sexually assaulted, they wonder if their perpetrators harmed somebody else. It's a question that through the 25 years that I've done this work, they wonder, they ask that they report because they
think that that might protect other people from being assaulted or they report wondering if somebody else has also reported. But reporting sexual assault, can be very traumatic as well. It can be just as traumatic as the assault for some survivors. And so we wanted to give survivors another option besides just reporting or not reporting. And so, like I said, our technology is fully encrypted and it's end-to-end encrypted, which means that any information that's put into the system is encrypted before it hits our server.
And then survivors can enter into matching. And that is so they can find somebody else who's been assaulted by the same person. And what they do is they put in the state where the assault occurred, and then they put in a unique identifier of the perpetrator. So the perpetrator's social media handles, email address, or phone number, however many things that they know. And then if that's what we use to match on. So if two people put in the same Instagram handle of the same person, let's say, there's a match.
Tracy DeTomasi (03:30.102)
It's not like a dating app, so they're not going to be matched right away. We find out, but the survivor data and the perpetrator data is still encrypted to us. And that's because lists like this get shut down for defamation often. And so we wanted to make sure that it's the most protected for the survivor, as well as for our organization. So we don't have to experience lawsuits either. And then what happens is we assign that case to a trauma-informed advocate.
who then reaches out to the survivors individually. And that trauma-informed advocate is free to the survivors and they're also protected under confidentiality. And then the survivors individually tell them what happened, if they want to. They do not have to meet with them, but they can if they want to. And if they do, they say what happened to them.
And then they get options. You know, what are your criminal options? What are your civil options? What are your Title IX options? Because we're focused on college campuses. And what are your mental health options? Any options that you may not know that exist because most people don't go around thinking about what are my options for surviving sexual violence because they've never experienced it. And then if it's safe to do so after given the risks, the survivors will be put in contact with one another, again, only if they consent.
And then it's their responsibility or their ability, I should say, to pursue healing and justice, whatever that means for them. We don't define healing and justice for survivors. And so we don't report to police. We don't report to Title IX. We don't report to HR. We don't report to any authorities. That's on the survivor to do because that, again, can be really traumatic. And we also don't investigate what happened. We are really about, the first phase is really about survivor empowerment. The second phase is perpetrator accountability and the third
phase is systems change.
Jess Vanrose (05:14.158)
Wow, that is honestly an incredible system that you guys have built and are working on. Like, I love that you have taken something that, like you said, it really can be very traumatizing just going through that process and that you've found a way to make it empowering for them and they can choose if they still want to proceed with that reporting process, but they don't have to. And
And the app is like really empowering them and connecting them, helping them feel like they're not alone, which is really important. Is there a moment when you realized like, is why we do this work? Do you have any story?
Absolutely. Yes. know, coming into this work again, having done this for as long as I have, and I actually started my career working with adolescent sex offenders. So I knew from the offender side how often they offend and they get away with it. And then I worked on the victim survivor side for a long time as well. And I knew how difficult it is for so many survivors to...
live with this and to experience it and how they hold it. And it's a secret so often that it can't be seen and people don't know. And so there's a couple moments. There's moments that happen when I say what I do and there's a person in front of me who pauses. And when they pause, I always know what's coming next. And it's, I wish that I had that when I was in college. And so that tells me what the power is. But then we got to see it work. Most of the time we don't get to connect with the survivors who match.
because of all the confidentiality that we have around that. But a survivor reached out to us and this, you can read the full story on our website. But a survivor reached out to us and said that they had been assaulted two years prior by a significant other. They worried about reporting. They worried about not knowing what happened to them. They had said that they had gotten drunk at a party, thought they did the right thing and asked their significant other to take them home. And they woke up with bruises on their body and they knew something had happened.
Tracy DeTomasi (07:21.538)
the significant other was like, I'm so sorry, this will never happen again, all the excuses. And that survivor lived with it for two years, not knowing if what she experienced was assault or not assault or what to do about it. But they knew that if somebody, if they could report with somebody else, they would. They entered into Callisto, again, two years after their assault happened and they found a match. And then after they started talking to the other person, they found out that there were numerous people on that campus who had been assaulted by that person, by that perpetrator.
and they were able to collectively report to their school. I'm not sure about what has happened in that case, but the fact that she said that her life had changed the moment that they knew that they weren't alone. And that is so powerful because whether or not we hold perpetrators accountable, which we know that we will and we have, but regardless of that, that power to know that drinking didn't cause you to be assaulted, picking the wrong partner.
did not cause you to be assaulted. Going through red flags did not cause you to be assaulted. It was that person's willingness to quote unquote take advantage of you, which is basically just finding a way to assault you. And that it is solely their responsibility, the perpetrator's responsibility. And that was when we really knew that like this has power because we knew that there were matches, but we hadn't talked to the matches yet.
And that was just a powerful experience. And I'm like, this is exactly what it was built for. Jess Ladd is our founder. And so it was her idea to create this after being assaulted on a college campus and then reporting it. And the reporting was nearly as traumatizing as the assault. And that was over 10 years ago. And so having this idea come into fruition has just been really powerful because
It's a difficult concept to explain. It's hard to understand why we exist. And it's really hard to know if people will use it because it is such a new concept, but we've proven absolutely that it works. And so that moment was incredibly powerful to say, we need to keep this going and we need to spread the word about this as much as possible.
Jess Vanrose (09:29.774)
I'm wondering how this kind of connects or intersects with the whole Me Too movement. Like, did this come around around the same time or?
That's a great question. Jess Ladd started working on this concept in 2013, so five years before MeToo. But I think that MeToo showed the world why it was needed. And so we had a different form, still the matching system, a different form of technology when MeToo went viral. And then because of that, because of a lot of other things, we adjusted it to what I described today.
and now it's available to anybody in the US and its territories with a .edu email address, so on college campuses, which is about 21 million people. But I think that Me Too showed us the power of it. Harvey Weinstein was not held accountable until not only did multiple survivors come forward, they had the power to come forward together and journalists did that work. Larry Nassar was a USA gymnastics doctor who assaulted hundreds of women and girls.
Again, he was reported to police, he was reported to Title IX, he was reported in many ways. But until they got together through the help of a journalist, they were not able to collectively come forward. And journalists are doing really great work in many times, but it's not safe, it's not encrypted. And it requires the perpetrator to be somebody that is worthy of selling a story. And so we're doing that with perpetrators who are not worthy of selling a story.
And we put the control in the hands of the survivor where it's not the story making the deadline. It's not the story doing all of this. It's really within the hands of the survivor. And also with me too, there was a quick viral list that happened and it was called the shitty men of media, the shitty media men list, something like that. It was like a Google cheat and it went viral for about less than 24 hours and it was shut down and years later, the creator of that lift
Tracy DeTomasi (11:26.092)
list had to pay a man who was named on that list over a million dollars for defamation. So these things happen all the time. People are trying to solve this problem. It's done on social media. It's done on different lists. In the back of the day, we used to write names on the back of bathroom walls. But we have this encrypted solution, which is a call to these serial perpetrators who we're starting to see, you know, again, I've done this work for a long time and
When Me Too happened, I remember people tagging me on social media and all these Me Too posts. And I was like, I don't get it. I don't understand it. And I didn't understand it because I knew all those stories. I knew all of the stories of my friends because they trusted me with it because they knew I did this work. And I knew how many stories. I mean, I knew I was the person that said, I've never said this to anybody, but I'm telling you. So I knew the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment and domestic violence. And all of a sudden it hit me, nobody else knows.
people outside of this field don't know. And that's why Me Too was so powerful. It was because other people didn't understand how prevalent it was. And on college campuses in the US, 90 % of sexual assaults are caused by serial perpetrators who on average offend six times while just in college. And so we think that there's not a solution to 2.5 million college students being assaulted every year, but there is. And the first solution is to
to stopping these serial perpetrators who will continue to offend after college if they're not stopped, most likely.
I just had a random thought. don't know if you have heard of this or not. Have you heard of the Facebook pages or Facebook groups that are are we
Tracy DeTomasi (13:05.134)
Are we dating the same guy? Yeah. Yes, I have.
So I feel like that is kind of similar.
I've been in those groups. I've looked at them for personal reasons as well as professional reasons just to see what people are saying. And some of those lists have gotten shut down because of the men that are named. They're also not all about sexual assault. So one person's red flags is not another person's red flag. And sometimes their preferences or ghosting is not sexual assault. It could show that you're not a great guy to date.
but it's not the same thing, you know? And so those kind of behaviors get all grouped in one. And those can be really helpful and they can be also, you know, I have friends who've been named in them as well, unfairly and sometimes fairly. I think that they want to do the same thing that Calisto is doing. But the thing is we are not a warning system. We are not a list that people can sort through because those lists are like, those warning systems are what can be more problematic. And I fully understand why they need to exist.
But if we can hold the perpetrators accountable, rather than just warning somebody to not, who happens to be in that group, to avoid that person, actually hold these people accountable, I think that that is definitely more of an answer to ending serial perpetration.
Jess Vanrose (14:25.502)
Yeah, I completely agree. The thought just came to my mind because I feel like it's another example that has come out of necessity. Girls trying to protect each other and have each other's back, which I just think is a beautiful thing. At least, you know, in most cases.
Overall, the concept is positive and it's needed. And I think that it can validate, I think people are looking for a validation of their experiences, especially when they're potentially abusive, because I think that so often people don't realize what sexual assault is. And I know that sounds really weird to say, but with all of the myths around sexual assault, I think that the media shows sexual assault as something violent, where it's a stranger, they're going to
pop out of a bush or pop out of a parking garage. And that's who we have to protect ourselves from and we're going to spray him with mace. And that's not reality. Most victims know, 80 to 90 % of victims know their perpetrator. That's why, you know, the tags that we use as far as social media, email address or phone number work, because you can find that out about a person because you know that person. And so you don't think about it, the person that you were flirting with, but you didn't want to have sex with. You don't think about it, the friend of yours,
were the friend of a friend that you went to a party with and you got drunk and they assaulted you. And then you wake up, you're like, well, it was my fault because I got too drunk or it was my fault because I led them on or it was my fault because I, you know, wore something sexy to a party. But in the end, and I've said this so many times, but you you can get blackout drunk at a party 10 times, a hundred times, let's say a hundred times and never be assaulted. But you get blackout drunk at a party one time and are assaulted.
The issue isn't you getting blacked out drunk. The issue is that that one time somebody was looking to prey on your weaknesses and to assault you and that you were in the presence of a perpetrator who found your weaknesses. And that is that, know, so often we're trying to do sexual assault prevention as a way for women to protect themselves. We cannot protect ourselves from everything. We can't. It's completely impossible and we cannot live.
Tracy DeTomasi (16:41.088)
in a world of fear like that either. And even when we do all the things to protect ourselves, we still don't think it's our partner that's going to be the one to do it, that we trust to get us home safe. And yet that is so often the case of how it happens.
You mentioned that a lot of people don't know what assault is. I'm wondering, like, we all know, like you said, the Hollywood image of it where it's violent and it's very obvious. Are there things, smaller things that maybe somebody would struggle with like, is that assault or is that not assault? You know what I mean?
That's absolutely. I think there's a level of coercion where sexual assault isn't always physically violent. And I think that that's what people forget is that coercion is part of it. You know, I'm going to break up with you if you don't have sex with me and you don't really want to have sex with that person. But you really like that person and you don't want to break up and maybe you'll have sex with that person later, but you're not wanting to do that either today or right now or ever. And so they
They threaten you with something about that. I think that the pressure that happens, you you're making out, you want to do something and you're like, I don't want to have sex because you're not ready to have sex with that person. And then they slowly just keep, you know, pressuring you into it and then eventually insert their penis into you and you didn't want it, but you're enjoying all the other pieces. That's not consent. That is not consent. You get too drunk to have sex. And even if you're hanging all...
on the other person. If you're too drunk, then you cannot consent. And there's a, you know, and I'm talking kind of more adult college age scenarios, but there's so many of being underage and not being able to consent. There's marital rape of just because you're married doesn't mean that that's automatic consent. You need consent every time for every act. I think that there's a lot of pressure, particularly on college campuses of like hookup culture, but you don't have to. And I also think that
Tracy DeTomasi (18:44.748)
You know, there's a lot of power and control as far as professors go. I'll give you an A or maybe not even that of like, you're the best student I've ever had. I've never met anybody so bright as you, but they're a 40 some year old professor and you're an 18 year old student. And that power dynamic where you think it's love and you think that you're special, but I guarantee you that that professor has done that to so many other people, whether you're a man or a woman, you know, starting out in college. I think that there's a lot of coaches that
that assault young men on college campuses and they use homophobia as a form of control in that. And I think that, you know, in the fraternity culture, especially in the US with hazing that happens, a lot of that's sexual. Standing naked is a sexual violent act. It's sexual harm if you don't want to be naked. Touching genitalia, slapping your behind.
And there's also, gets, you know, there can be, I'm not gonna go into graphics there, but like there can be a lot more graphic things that happen under the guise of hazing that are really sexual assault. And so I think when you think about it like that, you understand that what happened is sexual assault and it is a violation and it is not consent, but it's not what you thought it was. There's a really great scene, and this is a show that's probably almost 10 years old now, 13 reasons why it was on Netflix.
And there's a really interesting scene between two of the characters who are dating and he wants to have sex and she says, no, I'm not really into it. I'm not into it. And you can watch them and she is certainly not into it. And finally, she just says, fine. He's like, I've got consent, right? And she's like, yeah. But he's not reading, like he pressured her into getting the yes. And so unless you have an enthusiastic, I am all in, then you don't have consent because a pressured yes is still not consent.
Because you have to read body language. And I know I've talked to guys over the years who are really worried about getting falsely accused. I said, don't worry about getting falsely accused because you're actually more likely to be sexually assaulted than you are to be falsely accused, particularly on college campuses. But you should worry more about that. But if you have enthusiastic consent, there's nothing to worry about. But then they say, well, you know, I had sex with a woman once and it was like they were a corpse and it wasn't any fun. And I was like, well, freezing is a trauma response.
Tracy DeTomasi (21:07.352)
when you're doing something that you didn't consent to. And so you probably assaulted them. And that might not have been your intention, but that's the reality of it, because you didn't get consent.
I think that's such an important piece is for the guys to really fully understand that. I do think like because of what our history has been with the whole Me Too movement, we've been able to see like what men have been able to get away with for so long. I feel like that education piece is missing for a lot of guys to fully understand. But I guess the simplest way to put it is that you need consent.
For anything and everything. Yep.
And enthusiastic consent. would even like preface it with enthusiastic consent because if you get enthusiastic consent, you know that you actually have consent. Yeah.
Exactly, there's no question or doubt there.
Tracy DeTomasi (21:59.138)
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
What ethical or emotional dilemmas came up when building something designed to hold such sensitive information?
Yeah, I think that, you know, we always want to be trauma-informed and survivor-centered, you know, with especially when we're collecting data. And we wanted to make sure that we didn't collect too much data and that all the data was secure. And there were times where we didn't have enough data in order to be able to fund it.
because funders want to know that it works and funders want to know who you're serving. And so we were originally collecting demographic data because we didn't want to put survivors at more risk. But we recognize because we're 100 % philanthropically funded, we had to have who are we serving? What is this working? And so we had to start collecting more data, which was a challenge. And it was a, can we do this? And can we do this in an ethical way? And we have definitely done that. And we probably still collect
less data than most people. think data is money these days and we will not sell data. We don't actually have access to most of it because it's encrypted. And so we take that very, very seriously. We also have to think about how people are going to misuse the system. We know of different ways and we've done a lot of threat modeling of how can people misuse the system. And there's a lot of questions about
Tracy DeTomasi (23:24.792)
how do you connect survivors safely? And so we have a lot of warnings and we make sure that you don't have to decide now. You can decide in months from now if you want to connect, but we're going to give you all the risks involved and then we're going to let you take time for that. We don't pressure survivors to make decisions. We know that trauma impacts the ability to fully process. And so we are very trauma informed, which means that we might not get the results immediately that we want, but eventually we know that we're putting survivors.
in the driver's seat and we're doing the best for survivors, which is a slower process and funders don't always like, but we need to center survivors. And sometimes that's a balance, but we always put survivors in the driver's seat. And if there's anything that we have to compromise on that, we will let them know and they will get to make the decision.
Yeah, that's so good. I feel like honestly just building something like this must have so many moving pieces and just like so many things to consider. But it also must be really fulfilling to be doing this because you're empowering and helping so many women.
It is. is. know, again, I've done this work for a long time in different ways and I'm really happy to be on this side of it because it's both intervention and prevention at the same time. You know, working in domestic violence shelters, working with child victims of sexual violence, it couldn't continue to do the direct service. It was really, really challenging to hear all the stories knowing that
when is it going to end? How are we preventing this? And when you're helping victims and survivors, it's really important, life saving and life changing work that was also very fulfilling, but it wasn't solving the problem. Perpetrators are how we're going to solve the problem. Getting men involved is how we're going to solve the problem. And this does both, which is really, really rewarding in a lot of that. And it's hard because you're not getting those like...
Tracy DeTomasi (25:17.474)
that person that you see come into a shelter and they experience safety for the first time. It's not an immediate gratification, but that's okay. know, it's the people that I talk to, like I said, the ones that are like, I wish I had this when I was in college. There's another, and she's consented to me sharing her story. Her name is Jess Michaels and she's become just such an amazing, dear friend of mine who I talk to almost every day. And she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein. And she didn't, she lived with that internally for
several decades. And she finally saw his face in a newspaper article and she didn't know his name. She knew that that was the person who raped her. And she went back to all of her journals from the 90s. And she was able to see that that was his name and that was the day it happened. And when she found out she was not alone, that was the day her healing began. And I now, like she and I have been friends for several years now. And so I didn't know her when that happened. But hearing her story and seeing
how much healing she's done just by knowing that she wasn't the only one. And the conversations that we have about Callisto is so empowering. And it's just like, this is what we're trying to do for folks. So they don't have to see their perpetrator's name decades later in the newspaper. And I would highly recommend going to her TED Talk. Jess Michaels is her name again. And she has this really great TED Talk that goes through all the emotions about it.
because it's so important. And I think that survivors who have gotten that level of justice or that level of healing, I should say, it's life-changing. And that's what we're trying to give to so many survivors.
Yeah, I will find that TED Talk and link it in the show notes. And that actually leads perfectly into my next question. What do you think the ripple effects are when a survivor realizes they're not the only one? Not just emotionally, but culturally and politically.
Tracy DeTomasi (27:09.71)
I mean, the story that I just told about Jess is a huge demonstration of that. You lose your guilt, you lose your shame, you lose your questioning of what could I have done differently? Could I have drank less? Could I have not gone to the party? Could I have worn a different outfit? And the answer is always no. The only thing that could have been different is that person, the perpetrator's choice to assault you. That's it. And so I think knowing that takes
a weight off and you still have to do the healing. You still have to do the trauma work. You you still have to get that stuff out of your body and you know, that's going to be, that's going to look different for everyone. But that's still really important. But I think that there's also a level of justice that can happen as well with our system. And justice looks different for everybody. Some people, you know, you can get somebody locked up for life.
and they still don't feel a sense of justice because of how the system was and because of how long that court process took and everything. And so it really is about giving you choices and for you to have that agency given back to you and those choices given back to you that's really, really important.
Yeah, I think that's a really important message for everybody to take away that there is nothing that you could have done differently to have stopped that from happening because it doesn't have anything to do with you.
Yeah. And I think that there's actually today because of the Weinstein trial is happening again, the retrial again for the so many times and putting those victims through that again and again and again, which is again, re-traumatizing. But I saw a clip that I've seen for years of Courtney Love, who she had called Weinstein out on a red carpet decades ago. Everybody knew about him. But now you can say that you've been assaulted by Weinstein and people are like,
Tracy DeTomasi (29:00.322)
they believe you, where before they didn't believe you or they believed you and didn't do anything about it. And that was the culture we lived in pre-MeToo. And you could see that with celebrities, but I also know of numerous celebrities who haven't been called out yet. And I've talked to their victims and their survivors because it's still too scary and there's still not enough protection. And we can see the backlash of it. We're seeing it now with funding cuts in this space. We're seeing it with the president
of the United States being a convicted sexual abuser, you know, and he's been accused of by multiple people. And so we see that. And I think that that's a challenge because when survivors see that and even like the Diddy trial that's going on right now, when the comments are awful. And so, you know, if you're commenting on something and you say something, Cassie's not going to see that. Diddy's not going to see that. But you know who's going to see it?
your friends and your family who are most likely a significant proportion of the women in your life have been assaulted in some capacity and a significant group of men too. You know, so you're indicating to them that you are not a safe person and that they should keep their secret and that they should not come forward.
I think that's really important to put into perspective for people. It's not the big famous people that are paying attention to your comment. It's the people that you actually care about that are going to see it and be like, damn. Yes, I'm not talking to them. How has working on Callisto transformed your relationship to your own sense of safety, vulnerability, or resilience?
That's an interesting question. You know, having worked in this field for a long time, there's definitely secondary PTSD that I have with this. And, you know, I'm in my own therapy for that, for sure, because I think that it's important for anybody who's doing this work to make sure that they get their own support. But it changes my relationship to the world because I see how scary it can be. It changes my relationships with people I'm involved in romantically. It changes my relationships with friends and family.
Tracy DeTomasi (31:05.666)
for sure. it's, so I wouldn't say that Callisto necessarily is that change. It's just working in this. Again, I knew me too before the world knew me too, because I'd worked in this field for so long. And so it's like, I question people's motives more. I know what can happen, the different ways to blame people, you know, and everything. And it's the, you knew better, you worked in this field, but I'm still human.
You know, I'm still gonna push past red flags when dating and I'm still gonna, you know, I'm still a human being that is gonna do the things that everybody else does because again, I can't protect myself either. So I have to give myself the same advice is that if something happens to me, I can't protect myself from that. Yet I would feel like I have the responsibility to because I know so much more than everybody else because I'm in this field and I know all the warning signs and I know all of it. But again, I'm not immune.
to that either.
So how do you handle approaching that? mean, you mentioned the therapy, but more so from the aspect of like, I'm not sure what your relationship situation is, but like from dating or that aspect, like how, or even just family members, know, like any, your own personal interactions, I guess. How do you kind of handle that? Is it, like you said, just reminding yourself, like, I can't protect myself from this?
I think that's part of it. A lot of it is boundaries. My boundaries have gotten stronger over the years. And that's been really helpful if there's certain people that I've had to cut out of my life that continue to victim blame, continue to not understand the work that I do and don't want to learn. They want to live in the myths. And even when I challenge them to say, and I don't challenge people and like, you're wrong. I really listen to them in...
Tracy DeTomasi (33:00.662)
many ways, especially if they're close to me, especially if they're family or they've been friends. like, have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? What about this? You know? And a lot of people have come around and been like, wow, I've never considered that before. And then there's some people that are like, no, you're wrong. And I'm like, I'm not wrong. This is my, like, I'm an expert in this. This is my expertise. So a lot of times it's really strong boundaries. And I am single. So dating is a challenge and it's letting myself be willing to have fun with also
knowing my boundaries and giving myself permission to, if I mess up on a boundary, giving myself the same grace as I would anybody else, which can be challenging. But yeah, and I think having a really good support system is necessary. My team talks about challenges a lot. Having a really good team is really important in this work and having really good friends that I can talk to. You know, it's really interesting because when I'm dating and men ask me for the first time, well, what do you do? I always a little bit.
hesitate on that question. Because there are several different types of reactions, but the reactions are an indicator. If I say I work in sexual violence or I work in gender-based violence and they're like, well, you must be a man hater. Well, I mean, like I've had men like delete me from apps immediately after saying it. I've had men ask me, well, are you broken then? Are you a survivor? And I'm like, survivors are broken. And you can assume that
99 % of the women on this app are probably a survivor. So just come with that grace to every woman you meet. It's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. Also, it helps me get rid of the dating pool. But you know, there's also so many that are like, wow, that's really amazing work. I'm so glad you do that. Some have acknowledged that they're a survivor. Some have acknowledged that...
they know somebody that is, then they want to talk about me too and like how they went to the women's march or they did whatever. And so there's a lot of really great allies in that too that are really positive indicators of men as well. But it definitely has an impact.
Jess Vanrose (35:07.808)
have a fun question for you. If Kalisto had a voice or a spirit, what do think it would say to survivors logging in for the first time?
I believe you and you're not alone.
That's really good. So for survivors listening who maybe aren't ready to try the platform, but they're looking for like another step, is there anything that you would recommend to them as maybe a baby step?
Yeah, you know, I think that, and again, right now our platform is only available to people with .edu email addresses. So we are looking to expand. But I think even following us on social media, if you can handle the content, because it will reinforce things that you may not know. It will help educate you on sexual assault and sexual violence and...
may validate a lot of your experiences that you question. But listening to survivor stories can either be triggering for some folks, but can be really empowering to others. And so I think that part of it is the baby stuff is saying, what do you need? And that's going to change. knowing that, and so what another survivor needs and what's helpful for them may not be helpful for you. So one survivor may want to binge every podcast about every sexual assault story because they want to know
Tracy DeTomasi (36:26.168)
They want to find themselves in those stories. Another survivor is going to be so triggered by that, they're not going to handle it. And so I think the baby step is really figuring out what works for you and trusting that and going with that until you find something else that will work for you and continuing to evolve that. If you've been doing the same thing for 10 years, well, maybe, you know, try something new as well, because maybe that once adaptive behavior that helped you through a really significant
part of your trauma is now maladaptive. Isolating can be really adaptive at first as a protection. And if you're isolating after 10 years, maybe that's become maladaptive and that's not working for you anymore. And so just reassessing that a lot is helpful.
think that's really great advice. Are you ready for a rapid fire question? am. Close it out. Okay, so what would you tell yourself, your younger self, in one sentence?
I am.
Tracy DeTomasi (37:24.632)
I actually crowd-sourced this with my team. And so I think the best one that came up, because I would totally tell myself this, is that people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are.
yes, I love that. I wish I knew that when I was younger. 100%.
Yes. mean, I still have to remind myself of that now. There's so many survivors that I've talked to that have said, and I know you said this was a rapid fire question, but I'm gonna tell a story anyway. That a lot of survivors are like, I don't want to tell my story because then people are thinking about somebody violating me and they're imagining it. Possibly and possibly not. You know, like that might be one of those things that you think people, a lot of survivors think that people can see the fact that they've been assaulted and most people can't.
full damaged, or like that comment from that guy, you're broken. Yeah. no.
No, no.
Jess Vanrose (38:21.728)
Okay, what is your go-to hype song when you need a confidence boost?
Dancing on My Own by Robin.
Yeah, that's a good one!
You get to be sad, you get to be heartbroken, and you're just gonna dance it out anyway. Yeah.
love that. Do you have a mantra or affirmation you say to yourself often?
Tracy DeTomasi (38:42.444)
You know, I thought about this a lot because I don't necessarily have one, but I do always come back to the quote by Maya Angelou, which is, do the best you can until you know better. And when you know better, do better. And so I know I don't know everything and I know that the stuff that I have learned over the years in my career and just life and everything, I can't beat myself up for that, but I can do better once I know about
is so good. Okay, final question. What does life after trauma mean to you in life? Yes, I love that. Resilience is perfect. Do you have any final thoughts or advice for our listeners?
resilience.
Tracy DeTomasi (39:21.432)
think the only other thing is that if you want to learn more about Callisto, visit our website at projectcallisto.org. Callisto is spelled C-A-L-L-I-S-T-O. You can follow us on Instagram. We're pretty active on Instagram and LinkedIn. Those are the places to find us. And even liking a post, following us, sharing a post is really helpful to get the word out because the more people that know about Callisto and our platform, the more effective we are and the more people that we can help. Yeah. And the more perpetrators we can hold accountable. Yeah.
so important. I will have everything linked below. Thank you so much Tracy for being here and this has been an absolute pleasure talking to you and having you share your amazing experiences and wisdom with us. It's been fantastic.
Thank you so much for having me. Of course.
If you have not already, would mean the world to me if you subscribe and if you learned something new or found inspiration from this episode, please leave a review and share this episode. Until next time, take care of your mind, body, and soul.
