Leda Hell — How A $9 Mill.+ Survivor Led Company Became More Traumatizing For Me Than Sexual Assault Itself

videos:

- jae talks about their time at leda

working at a company built for survivors by survivors™ caused me as much trauma as my sexual assaults did — if not more.

i started working at Leda Health in May of 2020. i was staying with a friend in upstate New York since COVID-19’s spikey legs kicked me out of school. i had no money and nowhere to go.

being the identities i held–queer, non-binary, Puerto Rican + Cuban, poor– i was one of the statistics Leda often posts about. at 16, i was sexually assaulted by mom’s boyfriend. it’s a Cuban thing, she said. and then again by my prom date, and again working an office job, and again by my freshman year situationship, and so on.

i chose to leave home when my mom didn’t believe what happened to me. despite having nothing to my name and no power, i still chose myself. right now, i find i’m in a similar position of oppression with Leda, and i once again, am choosing to speak truth to power.

i first read about Leda through a LinkedIn email. creating at home rape kits for sexual assault survivors sounded like a revolutionary idea. the friend i stayed with upstate eventually kicked me out, so i landed back at my passive aggressive uncle’s house– the place i escaped to at 16. he graciously never made me pay rent, and so for the first time in my college experience, i was able to take an unpaid “internship” (that legally wasn’t an internship).

i had also recently taken to Twitter and Instagram, calling in the members of a powerful fraternity on campus, whose president and several members had sexually assaulted multiple Black and brown femmes– including me– in a program for students of color at NYU. that program was a place i often referred to as home. but like the many homes of my past, it was no longer safe.

so when i saw Leda as a suggested company to apply for, i went in on the application. i critiqued NYU’s leadership, their lack of accountability for sexual harm, the bureaucracy and more– which moved me to the next round of this “crazy interview process” at this “super unusual and nontraditional place of work.” i had to “take a short Tiktok…, or a Snapchat video with a weird filter” as part of my application.

i was uncomfortable creating a video of myself to work at a company that sold rape kits, but i did it anyway. makeup is a talent of mine, so i painted my face for my first ever Tiktok while talking about my skills and put my resume as the background toward the end. a Zoom call with bad wifi later and Madison Campbell, the white CEO who previously ran a company named Iyanu, had me hired. Iyanu was a “global connection point for companies needing their digital products created and skilled teams based in African countries. Built to serve a dual purpose of facilitating work from international clients at the best possible price.” Essentially, outsourcing low cost labor from highly skilled African people. an old tale.

in some of our first Slacks, Madison told me:

so, here it is.

during my two+ years at Leda, i often thought about that day. i was nineteen at the time. flattered that she saw my fire and entrusted me to call her in. reflecting back, i am so deeply saddened to see the enormous weight she put on me, holding the identities i hold, to keep her PC.

my first week at Leda began with instructions to download dating apps and set our locations to New Hampshire. the goal was to get folks to sign a petition against an upcoming bill that would ban our services in their state. in a Slack chat, Madison said, “we need you to meet some hunnies in NH.” thirst traps were encouraged. i told Madison i would get to it Monday since it was the weekend.

“no, now. it’ll pass by then,” she responded. so i did it.

M: Everytime anyone gets anything positive. Send it here. As incentive we’re doing something right

Alex: yea you offered $500

M: Offer is on the table. Venmo’d to the highest winner

Trevaughn: Jaelynn is about to wipe the floor with everyone

“Thank God we have beautiful employees,” Madison wrote when i sent how many responses i was getting. i was also asked to testify in court against the bill. so i wrote my story of sexual assault. the shame i felt that prevented me from getting a rape exam and how i could have used a kit. i shook as i shared it with older white people on Zoom. but none of my efforts mattered, the bill passed anyway. i also never received the “$500.”

i quickly became overwhelmed by the work, the groupchat of NYU survivors i was in, lack of accountability from my school, the fraternity, and the men who harmed us. since i had a growing trust in Madison, i asked for some time away as i tried to put together a support group for the survivors and myself.

seeing a huge opportunity for the company, she and Liesel, Leda’s co-founder, got me on a call and told me to create the group through Leda.

we’ve been wanting to break into mental health services anyway. it’s one of the biggest things we get called out for since we have no follow up.

and thus, Leda’s first healing circle was born. i was given two team members, Syd and Viv, who joined me on this large endeavor. we wanted to work with therapists of all sorts of backgrounds like art, music, dance, poetry, drama, yoga, sex etc. we were done with counselors just asking how does that make you feel?

with no money, we endeavored to find therapists who would facilitate sessions free of cost. we wanted to find people to facilitate our groups who looked like us (Puerto Rican, Haitian, and Taiwanese). Madison also LOVED being able to say the support group was full of queer BIPOC people– to the point that someone asked if white people were allowed (yes, they always were).

in one of the final sessions of our healing circle, the group facilitator asked, Jae, what scares you about the anger?

i saw Pandora’s box open. as a femme presenting Latine, i was never allowed to be angry. i was already too loud, labeled as “toxic” and must be “crazy in bed.” i was viewed as an exploded soda can that turned tables brown and sticky. a mess to clean up. but no one asked what shook me. why i exploded.

i chopped all of my hair off. broke a couple of glasses. my uncle, who was rarely home, ridiculed my fury.

i took a week off from work and made a joke about flying to California to see the guy i was talking to and cry at the beach– an absurd thing to do at this point in the pandemic.

“come,” Madison beckoned– living in California herself. “you can stay with me.”

so at nineteen years old, days after i called the mental health hotline, i did. i ordered a glass of wine with her at our first meal when she picked me up from the airport.

“Ouvo is, like, my favorite restaurant. i order pasta from here at least once a week,” she said as she slurped it down.

my uncle told me not to come back, so i stayed at Madison and her boyfriend at the time, Alexander Campbell’s place, for two weeks until i could go back to NYU for quarantine.

during that time we worked, thrifted, and Madison took photos of me in lingerie.

Madison and Alex helped pick out the lingerie they bought as we shopped. when we got back to the house, jokes were made about sending photos of me in the lingerie to the guy i was seeing… and then Madison offered to take the pictures for me. i didn’t feel like i could say no.

imagine if one of our investors saw me right now, she laughed as she told me to change my position for the photos she took from her phone. and she kept the pictures. three months later, she texted me:

a faceapped video that gave me long blonde hair, whitened my skin, and puckered my lips. the video transitioned back and forth between brown me, and white me. i was mid-sentence. nipples poking through thin lace clothing. right after, she sent me a faceapped photo of Drew and Liesel. if she sent me photos of them, did she send others the photos of me?

on the way back from another thrifting trip paid for by her wealthy partner, Alex joked his gift would be taking photos of both of us in the matching lingerie he bought. i laughed nervously. the laughter continued when he repeatedly made sure i knew that Madison is allowed to hookup with girls if she wants to.

i was a girl to them.

as the last week with them came to a close, i was expected to cook for them pretty much each day. i made sancocho one night, a dish my titi taught me how to make.

once she started to eat she said, “we’ve been having a lot of Mexican lately,” as their Latina babysitter picked up dirty plates around us.

i looked at her but she wouldn’t make eye contact. the babysitter at least caught a paycheck — i, however, was still unpaid.

and i wouldn’t be paid by Leda for the first time until November — five months later. $750 a month. Viv and Syd took even longer. April was the time of their first paycheck. Syd first. when Madison invited Syd– who was eighteen at the time– and i out to California to stay at her place again, we both offered to lower our monthly pay for Viv to receive a check. Madison said that wouldn’t be necessary, and began to pay Viv $500 monthly shortly thereafter.

on that trip, Madison told us a story that is foggy for me now, but goes something like: she dated a much older guy, he was abusive and had a revolving door of girls coming into his place she lived at, she tried her best to take care of them at the time and ended up falling in love with one of them herself. the girl was angry at Madison for the role she played in the situation and cut her off.

Syd and i were quiet as we walked back to the house with Madison’s different much older guy. unsure of what came next, or what we were even doing here.

Madison tried to numb the pain. she often gave us weed to smoke with her. offered me Adderall when i was going through it and even gave my partner at the time a Xanax once.

May 2021 was my first real vacation from Leda. burnout hit hard. between regular protesting in the streets after the murder of George Floyd and countless other Black and trans individuals, watching friends kiss pavement as they were cuffed, and hearing trauma survivors’ stories on a nearly daily basis, i needed space.

on the third day of being back home on my island, Madison nearly collapsed my team. i held weekly socials at the time to virtually build connections with each other that allowed us to release the stress we were shouldering. she joined the social that week, and boasted how she kept one of my team members who was a Black non-binary person, from having to get a job as a delivery driver by getting them a position with Alex’s company. the same Alex that joked about taking photos of Madison and i in matching lingerie…

she talked about how she and Alex were paying for the team members place to stay for the summer, and went as far as to call her actions “reparations.”

white saviorism at its finest. because i did not want my team to quit and i still believed in our purpose, i sent Madison a two-page long email followed up by a phone call that called out her tokenization, white guilt, white saviorism, employment of power dynamics by calling herself our (sugar) mom, co-opting the BLM movement by calling herself a “revolutionary” and the “left of the left” in addition to talking about how excited she was to come to NY to “get arrested” protesting with me, and most importantly, how she can’t cause harm to a Black person in a public call and then send the harmed person her apology to proofread and give them a deadline for when they have to proofread it so Madison can send it to the people who witnessed the event.

Madison sobbed on the phone call after reading my email which you can read below.

later, after a performative discussion– which also happened to be the first time we were all meeting in person– with Viv, Syd, myself, Liesel, Madison, Drew and John, Madison claimed things were going to “change.” she put me on the leadership team as Viv requested. and then put the target on Viv’s head for speaking up the loudest and advocating for us. i was able to get Viv to stick around, but she was only the first of many BIPOC folks who spoke up and were punished for it.

John and Exene were next. our beautiful, brown non-binary sales team. Madison was so excited to hire John, someone she made sure to tell me was “a queer Latino non-binary folk.” John then went and hired Exene.

Exene and John brought necessary structure to the boundaryless void of Leda and, most importantly, joy. Thursdays turned into Non-Binary Cookouts — on zoom, of course.

Exene was always the first person to hop on. Wendy, their spotted emotional support dog, would lay on their lap as Exene gently pet her head.

“the devil white bitch told me she’s trying to fuck one of our investors today and tried to equate it to the work i do. like, no bitch! if you suck dick for a company it’s a choice, i did that shit to survive!”

devil white bitch was the recurring term Exene used for Madison. sometimes, i hate that white women’s experiences with sexual assault can be put in the same category as BIPOC women and femmes. Madison was assaulted while she studied abroad. Exene and i experienced sexual assault and harrassment throughout childhood, in abusive relationships, and in workplaces. it’s a culture for us, and a qualifier for white women.

“i don’t even know what to say anymore,” i sighed. “she never fails to disappoint.”

Syd and John hopped in while we were talking.

“i just called her out in the leadership channel on Slack and that ho still hasn’t answered me,” John said. “you’d be lucky if she even put a thumbs up on the message,” Syd responded.

a few weeks later, John and Exene’s contracts were abruptly ended. i swore to them it wouldn’t happen. we weren’t that type of company. but Exene played this game before, and white leadership had recently said they “didn’t feel safe” with John and Exene when they spoke up.

when the external HR company was contracted, they were gone within days.

John went out swinging. despite only being given 1k with their exit, Exene continued playing. so another week later, they were given an interview and hired back — now as a member of marketing.

their job was to bridge the gap between Holistic Services, my team, and marketing — a very cis white team.

Thursday Cookouts fizzled in John’s absence. and Exene received very little guidance as to what they were actually supposed to do. i didn’t fully know either, but i was determined to provide some kind of support.

we set up weekly check-ins. i also added Exene to as many calls as i could so they’d get a better understanding of what we did.

we spent a lot of time sharing experiences, creating structure and missing John.

on my way to the airport for a mini-vacation i took, Exene messaged Syd and i saying they wished we had HR. they felt deeply disrespected and racially targeted by a marketing team member, but equally powerless to speak up.“she repeatedly cuts me off, says i don’t like that, but doesn’t explain why, and just shuts me down any chance she gets.”

i wanted to hold space for Exene, but as a member of leadership, i also knew i could take action.

“do you want me to talk to Liesel about facilitating a discussion with her?” i asked.

“yes.”

i brought it to Liesel and she said we needed to do trainings on psychological safety.

“Even as a founder I notice and feel a certain type of way about some actions at times, so I know it’s something everyone as a whole needs to work on and be more aware of.”

when i came back to work days later, i learned Exene decided to drop it. i respected their decision, but leadership was still aware and did not make any changes.

as one of my final projects for school, i put together a report on the company culture of Leda and presented it to the leadership team. instead of hearing it and taking steps to address the concerns that were brought up, i was met with defensiveness and never heard back from the team on how the feedback would be addressed.

graduation was around the corner for me, but so was our first board meeting, so i skipped one of my ceremonies to prepare with the leadership team for it. Madison and Liesel were the only ones allowed in. when they got out, the targets were now put on marketing. when Madison asked more about what was going on, she also learned that my team of underpaid Black and brown folks were already taking on about ⅔ of our weekly Instagram posts and a slew of other unknown facts, so the majority of the marketing team’s contracts were ended.

one could say Madison saw the injustice and took action. one could also see the thousands of dollars she saved by ending contracts with their CMO, the several members of marketing who made more than my team, and the outsourced labor from Nigeria. now, my team was “merged” with marketing and we were expected to — in addition to our already large workload — create Instagram posts, Tiktoks, Tweets and blogs with little to no direction and no change in pay. Exene was the only person they kept. Despite only making 3k a month, they were asked to take the lead over the majority of the previous CMO’s 20k a month job. A pay raise came later for Exene, but was still far below average for a “marketing lead.” i was eventually brought on as a part time employee and then offered a full time position once i graduated making a handsome 70k annually. i only lasted at Leda three months post-graduation.

with Exene and i in more power though, there were two weeks in which everything felt okay. we had daily meetings. Wendy would sit in, always barking and being shushed. Exene got Kat, their 10 year long friend with a successful brand, hired as our new social media manager.

that golden week felt safe. we put together a presentation for leadership on the future of our branding and social media. Exene hired a Black non-binary graphic designer, Benjamin– who was also my parter at the time. Madison promised Benjamin they’d never have to go back to working at Trader Joe’s. and so we got spicy with it.

we critiqued capitalism, posted Black and brown stories. Exene published the realest blog we’ve ever had on the site, titled “Here Cums The Prozac: A Story About Suicide, Sex, and Self-Preservation.”

we even met up the first week i moved to LA. went to Knott’s Berry Farm. Madison paid. Benjamin pushed Exene around in a wheelchair so we could get into rides more quickly. it wasn’t a finesse though– Exene did have chronic, often debilitating illnesses.

while we were there, i got so triggered i cried when i saw a grown man spank his daughter playfully. everyone quickly comforted. Exene stayed behind a bit though. i saw the look in their eyes. i knew they knew.

from left to right: Jae, Kat, Exene

the next day was the 4th of July. Kat and Exene bailed on breakfast. i texted our private chat:

Me: Not y’all leaving me alone with madison

Exene: YOU HAVE BENJI

Me: Lol we’ll be good, she offered to take us shopping after

Exene said to be careful. Madison’s gifts were never free.

that night, Madison picked us up and took us to WiSpa — a Korean Spa where we ended up getting naked and going into a hot tub together.

i look back at that night with revulsion. recently, i discovered that in our early days, Madison told multiple people in a group chat at the company she thought i had a crush on her. she was surprised considering “people like [me]” don’t typically like her. she meant BIPOC individuals who were activists. in that same group chat with my coworkers, she jokingly said, “please stop calling me a white supremacist and I’ll lick ur clit ok.”

she said that while she was the one who repeatedly flew me out to visit, mailed me dresses and asked to see pictures of me in them, took photos of me i’d never want my uncle to see, bought me a hotel room for my twentieth birthday that i publicly thanked her for on Instagram. i had no money then. i was barely making it. any and every gift Madison used to try to buy me, i took as payment for the months i worked for free.

when a coworker in that groupchat tried to tell Madison she just thought i just had a big heart and i’d never do anything inappropriate, Madison responded:

and i won’t lie, i absolutely cared about Madison. i wanted her to be better. i truly believed at some points she could be. but for her to get it in her warped head that a nineteen year old queer boricua she made a joke about sugarbabying was attracted to her? and for her to publicly say that in front of my coworkers at the company i gave my all to? and then, get to see me naked?

i feel so fetishized. i often think of the ways i was used when i served her and discarded when i didn’t. how i supported her through multiple break ups. literally gave her advice when she caused harm.

i think of the power dynamics. how emeshed she made herself in my life. and i get nauseous as i write this.

but we were in our golden week then with Exene. our golden times.

and then, the

gold

melted.

Madison made us take down the last six Instagram posts. she repeatedly told Exene they weren’t doing well enough to the point Exene broke out in stress hives and would regularly lay on the floor staring at the ceiling for hours. our calls and texts became longer and realer and less and less hopeful.

Exene messaged Madison and i before their forced mental health break began and said:

i think I’m actually very sick

Crazy weekend plans include soup, breathing through my mouth and wishing I could take my head off part time

to which Madison responded, “Nice love this for you.”

when Exene came back, on Monday August 1st from their forced time off, they were told to immediately terminate Benjamin’s contract and that of another Black team member who recently spoke up about being paid late.

Madison’s excuse was that the latter team member repeatedly missed meetings (2) and Benjamin didn’t step their graphics up– their graphics that were reposted by our facilitators, loved by the team, and brought some of the highest engagement we’ve ever received.

and so the next morning, Tuesday, Exene was meant to break the news to the team members, one of which they fought so hard to get hired. i Slacked Exene asking when they were planning on doing it. i saw they weren’t online though which was odd considering they lived in Spain and always started their day before me.

half an hour later, Madison sent us a screenshot of Exene’s mom messaging her on LinkedIn urgently asking for a call. she asked one of us to do it. Kat did. Kat then called me, sobbing.

i knew what that meant. i found out my dad died through the same jagged cries.

“they think it was a suicide.”

i sat down as i started to shake and nausea formed. my friend was dead. my friend is dead.

i called Liesel and she asked, “do you think we put too much pressure on Exene?” yes. yes, i think you did.

this is where the narrative has to become mechanical because my body is drained and my soul hurts. highlights of what came next include:

Madison talking about how her and Exene both had autoimmune disorders on the All Hands call
Madison and Liesel copying Kat and changing their Slack photos to pictures of them with Exene
Madison texting Kat and i saying Exene visited HER in her dream last night and wrote two notes. ONE was for us. take time off and realize you’re loved and cared about
Me calling Madison out for performing white saviorship AGAIN and trying to equate her harmful relationship to Exene with ours

flying to New York despite my illness and the rest of the company’s time off to record two pre-scheduled self-guided courses with our healing facilitators and Viv. leadership didn’t tell me i could stay home so while others mourned i sat on set — falling apart.

crying with Kat and Maria — the only other team member who’s been here since the beginning. Maria taking care of us.
returning to California after five days and becoming bedridden. intense nausea persisting daily, countless knots in my back, migraines banging and nightmares haunting. i was lucky to sleep for even two hours at a time. Benjamin tending to me.
Ilana Turko, our new VP of Strategy, an older white woman taking over basically everything
Madison’s public Asana page having a list of who she planned on firing, a reminder to get a nose job, and to review finances with mom
asking Madison about a project and being told i’ll no longer have daily meetings with her but instead with Ilana. all questions are to be directed to her
trusting Ilana because Exene did, and telling her how hopeless i felt about charging survivors for the healing circles and the harm this company has caused but never addressed
calling Ilana in for being rude and patronizing toward my team, including Neha Bhat, a licensed sex and art therapist who ran the revolutionary accountability circles we created for folks who’ve caused sexual harm
Ilana telling me she “respects me” and then firing* my ENTIRE team the next day (*when i went off on Ilana she made sure to interrupt me and say they weren’t fired. the people who’ve worked 9–5, some for many months unpaid, were contractors whose contracts were merely terminated. there was only ONE layoff. but three of those contractors who were fired were promised employment status for May that never went through. one was promised health insurance for a missing front tooth from a domestic violence incident. their insurance card never reached their door.)
all hands on zoom with those who remain. a bullet pointed slide was displayed of all who were fired.* i look at the remaining faces on the Zoom. there is no warmth. i don’t even know if any Black people work here anymore.
Ilana asking me to screen participants, review applications, and plan and moderate an upcoming healing circle (doing two other jobs on top of my own for no additional pay after my team of close friends were just fired* in 10 minute calls back to back with no headsup and i still have not yet grieved my dead friend)

Liesel, using Exene as a scapegoat and telling folks it was EXENE’S decision to fire* everyone before their suicide (i have screenshots of Exene warning me of all the folks on Madison’s radar, talking about messaging folks off of Slack to warn them of what might be coming and repeatedly apologizing to my partner and i that Madison was ending Benjamin’s contract)

Screenshots of a message from Exene to Benjamin prior to Benjamin being fired*

several panic attacks
a final zoom call with madison after i sent her some of the screenshots you’ve seen in this article. she cried. she begged me to “let Leda still be a company” (ie. not go to the press) and told me Leda would make a donation to the nonprofit Kat and I started in Exene Avril Rodriguez’s name, Avril Heals. Madison suggesting the donation would be large enough to at least pay some of the fired* team members part time. she also promised me six months severance (if i signed a contract that included a non-compete, non-disparagement clause, and a release of claims)
i sign the contract because Madison tells me to trust her

Madison never gets back to me

i type these words on this screen.

i realize now my intense illness i posted on Instagram about right after Exene died wasn’t as deeply related to grief as it was to this company and the stress i know they put on them.

the sickness was knowing my team didn’t have much longer either. the sickness was hearing TWO others team members who weren’t Exene say this company made them want to die.

and this story is hardly complete. it is my own recounting of the experience, and i could never speak for all of the folks who experienced harm at the company’s hands. i can’t speak for the folks from Lagos, Nigeria who were outsourced to write our blogs and contracts terminated when they no longer served us, the Latin American designer who was paid $13 an hour, my team members, some of which whom up until recently were only making $1k a month and even Exene, who wasn’t paid a quarter of the $20k monthly position they essentially took on and is no longer here to speak for themself.

sadly, some of these stories may never see the light of day. because many folks exit contracts stated in order to get $2k — which most of them need to make rent from the abrupt firings* since they lived paycheck to paycheck — that they:

shall not at any time make, publish, or communicate to any person or entity or in any forum (public or otherwise, including on any social media network) any defamatory, maliciously false or disparaging remarks, comments or statements concerning the Company or its businesses, or any of its employees, officers, or directors and its existing, former, or prospective customers, suppliers, investors, or other associated third parties.

and that this $2000 exit contract hereby releases, acquits and forever discharges the Company and it predecessors… from any and all claims, demands, actions, suits, causes of action, liabilities, obligations, indebtedness, debts, demands, controversies, judgements, orders, rights to injunctive or declaratory relief, breaches of contract, acts, omissions, promises, representations, administrative claims, arbitration rights, liens, damages, attorney fees, costs, expenses and liabilities…

let us also not forget the six months of very high severance previous white employees and contractors were given in comparison to my team’s $2k offers. and never forget Exene’s $1k exit.

a company built for survivors has been silencing survivors. Kat received an email threatening legal action because she was working with me to build Avril Heals.

we were blocked by Leda’s Instagram. Madison blocked my Twitter.

in responding to fact checks for the most recent article about Leda written published by The Cut, Madison denied so many of the things you’ve seen screenshots for in this article, and got borderline victim blamey: “Jae Ortiz bought several items, including lingerie and lace tops like the types they commonly wear.”

See her responses in red.

my attempts to get people to listen to us have been met with calls for me to be more proper and polite. i feel like the crazy latina who was never allowed to be angry. i’m screaming into a void for someone to listen, someone to care. this is what i mean when i say it’s a culture for us, and a qualifier for white women. who listens when we shout? who gives us millions to create survivor resources? who believes us?

i don’t have a vendetta. i hope the reader sees how much i and many others tried to make Leda a better space for survivors. there were so many interventions — many that didn’t even make it into this article. so many projects and plans and ideas and difficult conversations. Madison repeatedly asked me to trust her, and she failed me each time.

i do deeply fear that others may experience the trauma we have. i fear for the other young femmes Leda hired. i fear there may be another case when a survivor is raped and is promised a rape kit in the immediate aftermath only to find out the kits can’t be used in their state (this has already happened). i fear for the sororities they continue to try and work with despite being kicked out of several universities and banned in multiple states. i fear that someone will hurt like i have, cried like i have, develop PTSD the same way.

the night before i started my first job since Leda, Madison haunted my dreams. each time my new boss texts me, my heart races as i think i’ve done something incredibly wrong and will be fired at any moment. i try to never be alone in a room with a colleague.

the harm Leda Health Corporation has caused will take many years for the young contractors and employees of color who were burned to recover from. i hope they will be able to tell their stories too.

but more than anything, i hope folks will never encounter Leda at their schools, their communities, their tribes. i hope no more survivors become traumatized by this company.

i don’t know when i’ll escape Leda. it’s seeped into every aspect of my life. the computer i wrote most of this on. the state i moved to. Madison and Alex’s used bed, couch, and art easel i was “gifted.” i lay on the California King each night in clothes she bought while i hold Benjamin. Benjamin who now struggles to pick up their iPad and create for the fear of being rejected again. my mom’s boyfriend used to haunt my chronic nightmares. now, Leda does.