Document Category: Gender

Amicus brief, filed by a coalition of gender justice organizations, explains how sexual and gender-based trauma has profound adverse impacts on mental health, leaving survivors vulnerable to PTSD, depression, anxiety, emotional numbness, substance use, and revictimization (pp. 3, 5, 7, 13–15). Childhood sexual abuse increases susceptibility to these harms and can disrupt brain development (pp. 9–11). Trauma is cumulative—repeated exposure intensifies risk (pp. 11–12). The brief highlights that sex workers are at significantly higher risk of sexual violence (p. 15). Mitigation evidence related to gender-based trauma is crucial to countering social biases and prejudices of decision makers (pp. 20, 23, 25–26). While the brief focuses on capital sentencing, defenders can also rely on its research to support requests for gender and sexual violence experts and for sentencing mitigation.