The question of whether to support a Supreme Court nominee who has been accused of sexual assault should not be partisan. This is about the treatment of survivors. It is about telling us that what happens to us matters. That our traumas are not something to be ignored but are to be believed and investigated. Fully investigated.

I didn’t say the term “sexual assault” to describe what happened to me until Friday, when I looked at Mr. Flake. That’s partly because the first time I recounted what happened to me, I was dismissed. I sat in a therapist’s office, my hands shaking. “Something not good happened to me,” I choked out. I described the episode in vague language, not wanting to relive it out loud. When the therapist looked at me and asked, “Had you been drinking?” every ounce of courage left my body, and I retreated into my shame, feeling even more that this was something I needed to keep to myself because I had been drinking, so clearly I deserved it.

These consistent examples of invalidating survivors’ experiences of sexual assault is why so many don’t report. The same therapist asked me whether I wanted to press charges and when I said, “I’m not sure,” he got annoyed, as if my inability to wrap my head around the violation of my body was an inconvenience to his plans for the day.

Hours after our encounter, when Mr. Flake compromised with Senator Chris Coons to ensure an F.B.I. investigation, it was a first step toward letting survivors know: What happens to you matters. It made me feel like we might be taking baby steps toward a time when a woman’s instinct isn’t to feel ashamed and the instinct of someone in power isn’t to ignore her. Where survivors can speak up and speak out.