September 29, 2026 
It’s been 10 years since I wrote “About that Video with Titan: An Open Letter to Clinton Anderson,” an essay on sexual assault and a horse trainer’s casual use of the word rape. Out of curiosity, I read it again. Bracing myself for some cringe, I pulled up the link.
The thing about being an essayist is that the writing we create is always a product of its time. It shows us in the moment of writing, with all the blind spots and biases of our former selves Reading old stories can be fun. Other times, the ideas age like hay that has been left out in the rain—rancid.
The “Open Letter” had, for the most part, aged well. It was definitely a product of 2016, but I was shocked at how articulate I was.
I saw Anderson’s casual use of the word “rape” as one of his blind spots: he said things like that because he didn’t really think it through. I was vulnerable about my own experience, and it was clear I did my research. I was so measured and thoughtful and downright polite. The current me would probably tell him to go kick rocks. I am not sure which is the better response.
The crazy part is how the essay came out before #MeToo took off. It came out six months before the founding of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an organization committed to responding to the sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of athletes. It would be another four years before the nonprofit #WeRideTogether was founded to prevent abuse in sports.
Rereading the Open Letter, I am a bit flabbergasted by my candor and bravery. I was still a baby writer, yet there I was saying it as I saw it—power dynamics be damned.
At the time, I was housing-insecure, broke as a joke, and working on my master’s thesis. I still rode, but it was a makeshift life on other people’s horses. The fact that I found the wherewithal to feed myself, let alone write essays, still shocks me.
Today, I have a regular paycheck and horses of my own. I still walk a tightrope of uncertainty, but this one at least has some semblance of a safety net. While owning horses comes with a lot more responsibility, it is also deeply satisfying.
The essay also makes me grateful for good editors. As someone with dyslexia, I have frustrated some of the people who have proofed my work. Others, though, have believed in me in ways that still leave me in awe. Good editors have saved me from myself, modifying or even not publishing pieces that may go a little too far or where the ideas are half-baked. Reading over the Open Letter, I know part of its eloquence is due to the people who looked it over after I sent it in.
That essay was also the first time I experienced the thrill of being read by more than about five people. I remember constantly hitting refresh on my phone the day the essay came out. I ignored the sound advice of “don’t read the comments.” Instead, I savored each one, even the hate mail and the trolls, marveling that so many people were reading a thing I created.
Most writers, myself included, start out publishing in literary magazines or on blogs with very niche audiences. That day was beyond anything I had experienced before.
The last decade has been anything but rainbows and unicorns. The same casual language and power dynamics I wrote about then have not disappeared; they’ve gone mainstream. Affirmative Action and Roe vs Wade were overturned. The manosphere and terrifying misogynists like Andrew Tate grew in popularity. Just this week, we learned that the Cornell 7 answered for rape with an essay assignment. The basic idea that women are people seemed to backslide.
Progress is a pendulum, often a painful one.
But if I have learned anything in the past ten years, it’s that we cannot be put back in the box. Now that women have tasted more equality, we fight for it.
The essay was also a lesson in the power of my own voice. Once I started saying the hard things out loud, I found it difficult to live any other way. I read that our biggest virtue is often our biggest flaw, and I have discovered mine is the ability to say or write uncomfortable realities.
Even so, sometimes I too am a coward.
But a decade in I do know this: all our voices have power, whether it be in the barn or the boardroom. If that weren’t true, predators with influence and deep pockets would not spend nearly as much time, effort, and cold, hard cash trying to convince us otherwise.
Horses teach us many things, one of which is to face our fears. Sometimes that scary thing is speaking up.
