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Gymnastics is a sport notorious for its difficulty. Watching people flying through the air with grace and sticking a landing with poise fills the viewer with a sense of awe, and the amount of effort, training, and discipline required to compete in gymnastics is clear to see. Gymnastics requires more than just physical effort, though. It requires dedication to several practices per day, weight monitoring, unavoidable injuries, and taking harsh criticism. It is no surprise that in a sport so rigorous and disciplined, the culture is rampant with emotional abuse, physical abuse, and famously, sexual abuse.

Catcalling: What is it? We hear this word thrown around all of the time. When we see it depicted on TV, it’s usually a bunch of rowdy construction working standing around whistling and calling out obscenities to a beautiful woman in a short skirt.

When I was a teenager, I never told anybody what was happening to me. I was afraid to tell any adults because I wasn’t supposed to be sexually active in the first place. There was a stigma, sex was taboo, and I didn’t want to cause a scene. I didn’t even know what to do if I wanted to speak up or ask for help.