But tracking Ms. Swift’s case, she said, and seeing the singer respond forcefully to the same doubts, felt “empowering,” the woman said.

“The language she used was really important,” she added. “She didn’t act submissive and polite like women often do. She was honest. The language she used was raw.”

In cross-examination, Ms. Swift lobbed back questions by Gabriel McFarland, Mr. Mueller’s lawyer, that sought to sow doubt into her story — that Mr. Mueller had reached under her skirt and grabbed her backside while posing for a photo at a preconcert meet-and-greet alongside his girlfriend at the time. When Mr. McFarland told Ms. Swift that she could have stopped the event if Mr. Mueller’s actions had been so disturbing, she replied, “And your client could’ve taken a normal photo with me.”

Ms. Swift called Mr. McFarland by his first name during her cross-examination — a creative move to undercut his authority, said Carly N. Mee, a lawyer who works with sexual assault survivors — and spoke in bold, unflinching language about the assault and its immediate effect on her. “It was like a light switched off in my personality,” the singer said.

Ms. Goss Graves said the examination was typical in a case like this, where the victim is often forced to defend her actions and blamed for the assault. “Right now, the playbook for people who report harassment and discrimination is all about, what else could you have done to prevent the harassment and discrimination,” she said. “What were you wearing? What were your actions before and after?” Fear of reprisal or backlash is a major reason that sexual violence is underreported, she said.

What was not typical in Ms. Swift’s case, Ms. Goss Graves said, “was how effectively and persistently she reminded everyone of his conduct,” in unfiltered language. It is not, she and other experts in the field said, an easy thing to do — and not an approach that all victims would feel comfortable adopting. But the fact that the assault happened to Ms. Swift, a wealthy and powerful young woman with the outsize self-assurance of a celebrity, is a reminder that harassment can strike anyone. “Your belief in yourself isn’t a protective shield to someone’s inappropriate conduct,” Ms. Goss Graves said.