This is the fourth in a five-part guest blog series by Savanna James discussing her breast cancer journey. See the first installment here. I hope you'll read and share them all!
I’ve had countless conversations with survivors, and survivorship for young adults can be summed up as “70 years of looking over your shoulder waiting for the cancer to return.” And because of this...more than anything...we don’t just want to survive, we want to thrive.
This amazing organization exists “to combat the increased rates of isolation and depression in young adult cancer fighters and survivors, as well as to equip them with resources in their fight to help increase survival rates. The mission of the organization is to support young adult cancer fighters and their unique needs, through providing beneficial programs and creating a cooperative cancer fighting culture that works to heal the whole patient.”
And as they say at Boon, with a cancer diagnosis, you become a member of the club that no one wants to join. They combat this with the Courage Club, a free online support community and monthly meet up group for young adult cancer fighters and survivors in the Lowcountry (and beyond) to connect with others who understand the battles that come from a cancer diagnosis as a young adult. They also provide financial assistance, mental health resources and access to guidance which helps facilitate care and second opinions.
In June 2021, I will compete for the title of Miss South Carolina, an honor I hope I have that I have the chance of receiving. Regardless of the outcome, I know that my purpose is to continue serving my community and being a voice for my fellow survivors and fighters.
My hope is that fellow survivors, and those going through treatments or a recent diagnosis, use my story to help look at their situations in a different light, and that others can see my story and understand the need for support and comfort, not only during treatment but through the years after. It is one thing to hear a statistic, but it is another to put an actual face behind that number. The scenario becomes so much more real. It goes from something you see in a textbook to your neighbor, your co-worker or even your family.
Cancer is an ugly word that strikes fear into hearts, creating an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness, but let me be the first to tell you that you do NOT have to feel powerless. You aren’t any less of a human for what you’re going through and feeling.
Cancer doesn't define you. And that is a lesson I have to learn on a consistent basis.
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I hope you'll come back next week for the final installment of her story. To find out more about Savanna and her breast cancer diagnosis, visit her Section 36 Pageants profile page for links and more info.
This is the third in a five-part guest blog series by Savanna James discussing her breast cancer journey. See the first installment here. I hope you'll read and share them all!
On February 10, 2020, I woke up calm and unafraid. I knew that my life would never be the same, but I had found my purpose - to share my story. And on that day, at 7am, I underwent my own double mastectomy and reconstruction at 24 years old.
The surgery was a success...but it wasn’t over.
What is harder to discuss, and what is rarely talked about, is the fact that when treatments end, your journey is just beginning. There is so much left in life that goes beyond a diagnosis, but, yet, is still so greatly affected by it.
After the surgery, I was faced with the dark reality that my journey wasn’t finished just because I had completed the procedures. Every single moment for the rest of my life, I have to live with the constant reminder of what I went through and what I will continue to go through. This realization was probably the hardest part of the entire journey for me.
I mean, let’s get real here. I lost my boobs before I hit the age of 25. No, literally. I lost them. They scooped them out, as I like to say. Subsequently, I cannot feel them and certain parts of my chest and I will never be able to breastfeed my children. I look like I’ve been cut in half right and then sewn back together multiple times. It’s not pretty by any means and it’s definitely something that is hard to swallow when you’re in the middle of the pageant world or even just in young adulthood.
For all cancer survivors, when treatments end, your journey is just beginning. There is so much left in this life that goes beyond a diagnosis, but, yet, is still affected by it. After treatment, a lot of young adults are left feeling less of an actual human, much less a young adult with a whole life ahead of them. Please understand that there are struggles beyond cancer treatment. Truly, have you thought about the effects on a person’s mental and physical health that exist outside of the cancer itself?
There are so many and I won’t list all of them for you, for that in itself is impossible, but they include problems with heart disease, fertility issues, autoimmune diseases, body insecurities, financial struggles and PTSD.
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I hope you'll come back next week for the fourth installment of her story. To find out more about Savanna and her breast cancer diagnosis, visit her Section 36 Pageants profile page for links and more info.
Note: This article is a compilation of social media posts from Leah Juliett.
Content Warning: This article depicts situations of suicide, tech-based sexual abuse (TBSA), image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), and child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
This is a string of messages from one of the first times I was asked for nude pictures as a fourteen year old on Facebook.
I’ve never shown these before. These messages are only a few of the many increasingly pressuring interactions with my perpetrator. This is where the story starts.
When I talk to children and teens about sexting and consent, I talk about the manipulation tactics used to convince vulnerable youth into sending intimate photos or videos of themselves to persons (often men) who are preying on them. This is an example of that manipulation.
When I initially said no he questioned my commitment, told me I was unworthy, called me a whore, and told me he missed me. This wasn’t the first or the last time he asked.
I was asked for nude photos for over a year before I complied. Each time I refused, I was told that I wasn’t good enough, I was a disappointment, or I was a tease.
This is how bad people hurt you. This is how they convince you that you won’t be loved unless you share your body. This is how they prey.
I am proud of myself for taking a stand and saying no for so long, and I am not angry at myself for eventually giving in. These messages are what started my story of victimization and survival of child sexual trauma and tech-based sexual abuse that went on for years.
One of my greatest fears in sharing this (and the subsequent photo of myself at this age) is that I will be told that I fed into his manipulation tactics, that I was a willing participant, and that I was old enough to know better. Let’s be clear. Anyone under the age of consent is not old enough to consent to their body being put on display. This was not my fault. And it’s not yours, either.
By the time I was fifteen years old, I’d sent four nude photos of myself to the boy who’d repeatedly asked for them. I made him promise he wouldn’t share them with anyone. He laughed at how silly I could be to assume that he would. As soon as I’d sent the photos, his immediate reaction was to ask for even more intimate images of me. I refused. We stopped talking and I started showing interest in other people, including eventually starting to come out as gay. That’s when he got angry.
He shared the photos of me around my school, and eventually they were posted on an international anonymous image board where they could be shared, distributed, and trafficked forever. My photos were categorized by my name, my town, and my school. My face was fully visible. I was trapped.
The photo above features real screenshots of men asking for my photos online circa 2014.
For the next few years, I suffered in silence knowing that my photos were circulating online, but unable to do anything to stop it. I fell into a deep depression mixed with suicidal ideation, intense anxiety, and PTSD. My first year of college, I abused alcohol and self-harmed frequently. I believed that I’d never be successful or able to escape a lifetime of slut-shaming. I was unable to breathe.
At this time in my life, I only saw the internet as an unsafe place. I changed my name, silenced my voice, and made myself small so as not to be victimized further. The single most transformative moment in my life was when I opened my laptop and saw the man who’d exploited me online staring back at me. His mugshot, all over my Facebook feed, told me that he was on the run for sexual assault of a minor.
In that moment, I knew that silence no longer served me. I knew that I had to speak.
I started by writing a spoken-word poem, then an essay, about my experience with tech-based sexual abuse. I posted the article online and began to perform the poem at poetry slams, including the Brave New Voices International Slam Poetry Competition in Washington, DC.
That poem is now five years old. If you’ve seen my TED Talk or have heard me perform the poem live, you know that the text is different now, many of the words have been changed and have grown with me. Even so, I’m in awe of my younger self, who wrote this while living through sexual trauma. In fact, my nude photos lived online for two more years after this poem
was written.
My entrance into activism was accidental — I took a used poster board and wrote “End Revenge Porn” in big, bold letters. I marched to the White House and stood outside the gates, holding my sign and screaming my poem, for all those around me to hear. I did not think that this would start a movement — but the freedom I felt from using my voice and publicly telling my story galvanized me to keep fighting for change.
But I didn’t stop there. August 12, 2016, at nineteen years old, I founded March Against Revenge Porn –– my first major organizing project. I spent the next few months organizing and planning the march entirely on my own –– contacting the press, getting permits, speaking with agencies, and planning the route. It was an overwhelmingly healing task. On April 1, 2017, I led our first march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall Plaza in New York City. We were covered by national and international press outlets, including CNN, who filmed and recorded this video segment.
After appearing on CNN, March Against Revenge Porn began to gain even more traction, receiving messages from victims and survivors around the world who’d seen our segment and wanted to join the movement. Seemingly overnight, we became a global activism and social justice campaign, featured in remarkable places like foreign newspapers and magazines, podcasts, morning news shows, and even the Snapchat Explore Page.
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Several months later, I was contacted by the office of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and was told the Mayor was passing legislation to criminalize revenge porn in New York City. I knew that our march had shifted the narrative around tech-based sexual abuse.
But we didn’t stop there. Over the next few years, March Against Revenge Porn hosted and organized marches in Pittsburgh (covered on MTV’s “True Life”), Orlando, and Boston. We were featured in a viral BuzzFeed video, a Seventeen Magazine video series, a TED Talk, and on nightly news programs nationwide and in Canada and the UK. We were global.
What started as a march across the Brooklyn Bridge has turned into an international movement fighting tech-based sexual abuse.
But we’re not stopping there… our plans for 2021 are to grow our global movement and mobilize our supporters while aiding victims of revenge porn through new and comprehensive measures.
ANNOUNCEMENTS March Against Revenge Porn is proud to announce that we have achieved 501(c)3 status and are a federally-recognized nonprofit organization. With this recognition, we can expand our access to grants, fundraising, and opportunities to connect with the public.
We are overjoyed to have grown our team of staff and board members, including our Executive Director, Associate Director, President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Director of Victim Support and Services, Social Media Manager, Director of Events, Director of Communications, Director of Policy and National Outreach, and Leadership and Capacity Manager. With these new positions filled, we are thrilled to be holding greater space for victims worldwide and increasing our reach. Meet our staff on our website.
March Against Revenge Porn is honored to have recieved $10,000 from L’Oreal Paris, which we are putting towards our Legal Defense Fund and national protest marches. Victims can apply through our website to receive payments of up to $500 towards their legal fees and representation. We believe that the path to justice should not be met with financial barriers, and we are prioritizing victims and survivors of marginalized identities and who face financial insecurity.
We have major plans for 2021, including partnerships with influencers, organizations, legislators, and corporations, virtual and in-person marches and events, a new ambassador program, legislative action, curriculum, research studies, more podcast episodes, expanding our victim support capacity, and more!
Some cool new things to check out on MarchAgainstReve ngePorn.org Call on Congress : Call your federal representatives using our script to ask that they support the SHIELD Act Activist Ambassadors Program: Are you an influencer or activist who wants to support the fight against revenge porn? Become an Activist Ambassador! March Across America Podcast: We are virtually marching across America through our new podcast series, interviewing victims and survivors of tech-based sexual abuse from all 50 states. Mask Against Revenge Porn: Support March Against Revenge Porn while staying safe with our new masks! Proceeds support our Legal Defense Fund. Thank you for supporting March Against Revenge Porn through the last 4.5 years of advocacy and grit. This year marks my 10 year anniversary of victimization –– and I am deeply proud of this full-circle journey.
I want to thank Leah for allowing me to share their story. To find out more about Leah and their actions, visit their Section 36 Pageants profile page for links and more info.
This is the second in a five-part guest blog series by Savanna James discussing her breast cancer journey. See the first installment here. I hope you'll read and share them all.
We are more than pink. We are people. We are friends. We are daughters, sisters, mothers, co-workers, aunts, even fathers and brothers. We are never defined by a stigma and we are never alone. And we do not have to feel that way. As a human, all you need is hope, and, for that, we have each other.
I’m going to be beyond vulnerable here, but knowing that my story could help save at least once person is what saved my life and kept me fighting. In that moment, and every single day since, I had to learn how to take a situation that is so undesirable and turn it into a platform for change and awareness. I began to see an opportunity, not a closed, boarded door. This is what kept, and keeps, me fighting each and every day to do a little bit better, to be a little bit better and to share my story to at least one more person.
On January 11, 2020, I competed in a local preliminary pageant for Miss South Carolina.
Crazy, right? I was less than a month away from something that could either save my life, or end it, and I was pageant prepping. Let me explain. In the middle of all of the chaos, I knew that despite whatever the outcome would be on February 10, I had at least a month to let my voice be heard if I won. The Miss South Carolina and Miss America Organizations were, and still are, my best shot at getting that recognized platform for people to listen. I knew people would listen. I just had to take the chance.
That night, I was crowned Miss Summerville and I saw a light
starting to form at the end of the tunnel. I spent the next weeks going to as many events, making as many posts, making as many connections, and talking to every single person that I could. If I was going out, I was going out with a bang.
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I hope you'll come back next week for the third installment of her story. To find out more about Savanna and her breast cancer diagnosis, visit her Section 36 Pageants profile page for links and more info.
This is the first in a five-part guest blog series by Savanna James discussing her breast cancer journey. I hope you'll read and share them all.
“You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” - Hamilton
At the start of all of this, in October 2019, I went into my yearly OB-GYN (breast appointment) thinking I was being preventative, as I had every other year. I didn’t feel different. I didn’t look different. In fact, I felt better than I had in years. I was in a new city (Charleston, South Carolina) where the possibilities for where my life could go seemed endless.
But quickly, that was shattered with what they found.
It turned out that instead of being preventative, that appointment was life saving. I had a spot in my right breast. I was quickly sent to a surgeon who specializes in breast cancer and I prepared myself for what was coming.
I had watched countless family members and friends go through it. They were all older than me, but some, not by much. It was devastating. You began to see the shell of what once was such a lively person as the treatments went on. How was I supposed to go on like this?
From the day I met with the surgeons, I continued asking myself why I was put in the situation to have to make this decision at the age of 24. What haunted me even more so, though, was that I knew that most women my age were not even aware that this disease was a threat to them currently. But I didn’t have time to ponder and think about the greatness that could arise from this situation, as preparations began immediately. The surgery was scheduled. I felt like I had the death certificate for my future in my hands.
I wouldn’t live whatever time I had left in vain. I reached out to the South Carolina chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation as soon as I discovered that I would be having this surgery. They work to help raise funds for both research and basic needs for patients. This includes funding for things like groceries, transportation, therapy and other items that are essential to everyday life. I sat with Lucy Spears in a local James Island coffee shop and I never felt more understood and heard. Lucy is now the Executive Director of Komen SC and that woman gives everything she can to an organization that means so much to her. You see, she’s a survivor as well.
We sat there for hours talking about how I was feeling, what my plans were, the struggles I was facing, my experience with Komen in the past, and then Lucy asked me a question that really did change my life...
“Will you share your story?”
And without a second of thought, I responded, “Absolutely.”
Did I know that there would be days that this answer would haunt me because I didn’t even feel like a human myself? No.
Did I know that there would be days that this answer saved my life? No.
But what I did know is that by creating awareness, we can catch breast cancer early enough that a patient is presented with options, not an ultimatum. Hope is crucial in fighting a disease like this, and I want others to know that they aren’t alone.
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I hope you'll come back next week for the second installment of her story. To find out more about Savanna and her breast cancer diagnosis, visit her Section 36 Pageants profile page for links and more info.
Looking back on 2020, I'm pleased with the content and progress of this here blog. The purpose of this blog has always been to give additional opportunities for the amazing titleholders who have visited Section 36 to tell the world more about what they do. I think I have done that.
The blog has had posted its own interviews. Had posts announcing appearances by titleholders. Posts about events hosted by titleholders. Posts about ongoing activities titleholders will be involved in. Posts about social impacts. All of those are my attempts bring more eyes onto the things these titleholders are doing. I'm hopeful that will continue in 2021, and expand. I would love this blog to have a "for titleholders by titleholders" sort of feel. It will be great to get more guest blogs, similar to the one provided by Kristina Ayanian, but take it even further. Posts about pageant experiences, or social impacts, or favorite appearances, or whatever. Anyone who has visited with Section 36 can feel free to take the attempt to write a guest post about the things most important to them. Wouldn't that be great? Look out for those guest blogs coming up in 2021!
What a fun opportunity to share some really important topics with as many people as possible.
Including those who follow Section 36 Pageants on social media. As I hope you're aware, the Section 36 Pageants social media presence is out there, and growing all the time. How? I'm glad you asked!
Instagram is probably the place I’ve seen the most movement in the past year. It’s been great connecting with fans and visitors through that site. I use that account to post any and all pictures that have been submitted by my interview guests. Maybe they were pictures that went along with their interviews, or extras that couldn’t fit with the interview. Or, they’re pictures that have been submitted after visiting. Whatever the case, I post them and use them to remind people of their visit. It’s fun because it adds a lot of different content to the feed. That account had a big 2020! Twitter is still the old standby. It will tweet out links to
titleholder interviews. It also passes along tweets/announcements from visitors. That account has over 1300 followers, which is fantastic.
Facebook provides fun opportunities. It posts links to titleholder interviews, as well as any pictures former visitors have submitted. It has also started posting pictures of any titleholders with Section 36 gear, whether they’ve visited or not. The number of people who like that page continued to grow in 2020.
With all those ways to connect with Section 36 Pageants, there should be plenty of ways to share the amazing things my visitors are doing. I can't want to bring that to a much larger scale. It’ll be a lot of fun. I hope you'll come along for the ride!
It's the holiday season! What better way to celebrate than with a virtual concert? This one is extra special. It's put on by members of the Miss New York class, which includes a whopping four former visitors to Section 36! I love seeing former visitors working together. Here's the info!
As the picture says, this will take place on December 20, 2020 at 7:00 PM eastern. The performing artists include former visitors Miss Thousand Islands Francesca D'Alessandro, Miss City of New York Taryn Delanie Smith, and Miss Broadway Megan Stier. Also performing will be Miss Triple Crown Mallory Strom. The concert will be hosted by another former visitor, Miss Five Boroughs Sydney Park. So much awesome all in one place!
If you want to watch, simply RSVP to be added to the Zoom link.
