Earlier today, on the steps of New York City Hall, along with other activists, advocates, elected leaders, and candidates, I stood up and spoke out about the Trump administration’s looming repeal of Title IX protections.

In preparation for today, I had conversations with my friends from college about what we experienced, how we managed it, and how the world has changed since we were in college in the 1990s … and not.

I realize how easy it was for us, as young women coming of age at that time, to accept and manage bad behavior and gender based harassment, abuse, and violence because we grew up in a time and environment that normalized it, did not punish it, and never discussed it.

The world has changed, but it has not changed enough, and our current President along with many others in power threaten to return us a time of silence and fear.

We can never go back to that time and we must not allow the repeal of Title IX protections. We should being adding more protections, education and measures of prevention. We must push for stronger NY laws that prevent and protect students and survivors. Those laws should be developed collaboratively with students, survivors, experts, advocates, and lawmakers.

Here is what I said today:

“My name is Danielle Brecker. I am running for New York State assembly in District 37 in western Queens. Today, I am speaking as a woman, who has, for most of my lifetime, witnessed gender based harassment, abuse, and violence be mainstreamed, condoned, silenced, overlooked, and unpunished by those in power.

When I was in college in the 1990s, my friends and I were not sure if our college would protect us, we understood Title IX to be about equality in school sports, and gender based violence was not a topic openly, if ever discussed.

So we took precautions to make sure we were safe — always going to and leaving parties together, using certain code words to signal we needed help, and identifying to each other allies and threats on campus.

That is not how it should have been and we cannot allow it to go back to that.

However there was a solidarity in the behavior of my college friends and myself.

A solidarity that has made many come forward after years of not speaking out about gender based violence.

A solidarity that makes us understand and empathize with survivors who come forward and say ‘me too’.

A solidarity that makes us activists in the streets, on these steps, running for office, fighting for what is right, and for not allowing those who come after us to experience what we did.

We cannot go back, we will not go back.

We will not allow Betsy Devos and the Trump administration to hurt students and survivors, to hurt all of us.

We will not allow Devos and Trump to eliminate our Title IX protections.

But this is not only a fight at the federal level. As an activist and organizer, I know what we can accomplish in New York State when we fight for our progressive values. We can advocate for and enact, at the state level, bold, country-leading, progressive legislation to prevent gender based violence and protect students and survivors. And those NY laws should be developed in solidarity with students, survivors, experts, advocates, and lawmakers together at the table.

Today we stand solidarity as sisters and brothers, as elected and community leaders, as activists, organizers, advocates, and candidates to say no to Devos and Trump’s Title IX changes and to demand that New York state enact stronger protections.

Thank you.”