Take Back The Night brought activism and amplified voices on a stage on Trinity Lawn from 6:15 p.m. to the late return of the march. Unlike previous years, this was the first time it wasn’t a silent march and instead, protestors were encouraged to be as loud as they could.

Be loud was echoed in their messages of the night, especially through the keynote speaker, Audrey Denney, at 6:15. Denney is this year’s speaker to represent women’s empowerment and is also one of this year’s Democratic candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives to represent California’s 1st Congressional District.

Denney opened up, acknowledging she had been looking forward to this opportunity for months. She then proceeded to say she is honored to be a keynote speaker in Chico, a place that has raised her and made her who she is, as she got both her bachelor’s and master’s at Chico State and taught at the university for seven years. 

“Take Back the Mic exists because too many of us have stories we don’t tell,” Denney opened with. 

She then, for the first time, openly told her survivor story and she also acknowledged the silence that surrounds these types of stories, admitting she couldn’t say anything until 18 months later. She said this was due to being under the influence at the time and in the societal stigma of victim-blaming, she wondered if it was her fault. 

She admitted that, despite at the time having a platform, a community and a voice, she was too nervous at first to speak up. Now, though, on Thursday night, she finally did. 

When she did, she also shared with the audience what she wished she had believed years ago. “It doesn’t matter what you were drinking, what you were wearing, or what you were saying.”

“Trauma is stored in our body, it’s not just a memory or a feeling; it lives in our nervous systems and I know this because four years later, I still have chronic pain,” Denney said. “I’m running for Congress while carrying this pain.” 

She then went on to talk about recovery and the time, patience and money it requires and how it shouldn’t be this way, but in this country, these are necessary to heal, which often creates barriers.

“You shouldn’t have to wait to hear someone say I believe you, I trust you and what you went through wasn’t your fault,” Denney said. “The failure of the system to act upon women and survivors is not a failure to survivors and women but the person who perpetrated it and the people who chose to stay surrounded by that person.”

She then acknowledged why the attendees all came together tonight under this united message of taking back the night.

“Everyone is here tonight because they’re carrying something and I want to let you know it was not your fault. It doesn’t matter if your story is buried deep in a place you can’t even reach yet. It’s not your fault and I’m still working on that for myself,” Denney said. “Keep speaking, I will stand behind you and that’s what I want each one of you to hear tonight.”

After the keynote speaker, at around 6:30 p.m., started the ‘Take Back The Mic’ segment, in which the survivors took the stage to share their stories. 

Students and locals took the stage to share the power of overcoming their trauma, from motivational speeches to poems and once-secret stories, for the first time publicly. One survivor even yelled out their rapist’s name at the end of their story, outing him publicly. As well as sharing support for others who share similar stories and reminding each other of their strength and unwavering support.

Leann Jenswold, who is in the Chico Re-Sisters group, said she sees herself as more of a ‘thriver’ than a ‘survivor.’ “I feel very powerful, like I can do something within my world. There is so much hope. There is so much healing out there, guys and whatever happens, don’t let them take your heart. Your heart is your heart.”

Kenzie Teal,the Gender and Sexuality Equity Coalition’s queer program director and senior at Chico State, took the stage. She read a poem she had originally written in 2017, back when she was 17-years-old, at the time she was going through a breakup with a toxic and trauma-filled relationship, though she didn’t realize how much of an impact it made until much later.

“I wasn’t planning on coming up here today, but after hearing we need to be loud here today, I came up here,” Teal said. After sharing the poem and her own story, she ended it with a message of support. “I’m here for you, I’m here with you and I feel so much stronger now after hearing from all the other women who went through what I went through.”

Snehitha Gorantla, women’s program coordinator for Chico’s GSEC, took the stage to speak about the victim complex, which she said she had been thinking a lot about.

The perfect victim when it comes to sexual assault cases is weak and vulnerable, sober, blameless in all aspects and victimized by someone they don’t know. 

“The perfect woman is white, heterosexual and young,” Gorantla said. “I don’t know about being white or heterosexual, but I know about being young and not staying quiet. I have a microphone in my hand-” she then pulled the microphone away from herself and yelled, “and can be loud without the microphone!”

At 7:15 p.m., protesters met in front of Bell Memorial Union with handmade signs and vigor to create change and raise their voices. There they marched together in solidarity with the community and resistance, they marched through the campus and Downtown Chico with a highlighted route through West 3rd and West 4th streets. 

Support services were made available at the event. Catalyst had a table, a nonprofit organization that provides 24/7 crisis support for survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Butte County and Glenn County, CA. Their resources include a crisis hotline, free short-term therapy, sexual assault forensic exam accompaniment, law enforcement and legal advocacy, as well as safe housing. 

“Anyone can come to us for help, the first step usually looks like a call to the hotline and most of the time that’s really a conversation validating the survivor’s experience and reality,” said Zoe Vernen, intern for Catalyst.

There are no barriers to care when calling the 24-hour hotline, regardless of demographics or substance abuse issues. There are also no real-life qualifications, whether that’s documentation or identification, the interns emphasized.

People are allowed to call the hotline whether that’s because they want to follow through with their plan of next steps, they need help, or just to vent and share their story confidentially. 

“As an organization, we believe that the survivor is the expert on their own experience, so we are not going to push anything on anyone,” Morgan Barlow, Catalyst intern, said. 

Take Back The Night didn’t just ask people to be loud; it proved what happens when they are.  

Lucy Bakowski can be reached at [email protected]