A lightless stasis

There is a point when crossing the Garfield Street pedestrian bridge in Laramie where the overhead lights stop working. In daylight, this sidewalk suspended above the Union Pacific Railroad is quite magnificent. You can see in all directions across the highway to the mountains and watch the trains pass below.

At night, on the side where the lights don’t work, you can’t see anything; not even what’s a few yards ahead. It has been this way since I moved to Laramie’s West Side Neighborhood six years ago, working only sporadically before returning to its lightless stasis. 

In late September, after a survivor filed a civil lawsuit, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reopened a closed 2024 investigation of the alleged gang rape of Jane Doe at Cornell University. National news outlets were ablaze with a slew of previously unreleased information regarding the case from past records, the accused fraternity members and the Cornell campus. 

Survivors and allies across the nation began declaring themselves “Jane Doe” in solidarity with Cornell’s Doe-of-note. Meanwhile, speculation about her recollection of the attack became fodder for comment sections and talk show commentary. We’re met with the all-too-familiar questioning of the attacked woman’s responsibility in “inviting” the young men to her body. 

This Jane Doe’s story is not new. There is no novelty in the discourse around the alleged perpetrators’ responsibility to the survivor, to one another, to those they see as objects of sexual desire. To women, this is a familiar walk down an uncomfortable path — as familiar as the dark stretch on my commute home across the railroad.Stories of assault and half-hearted institutional attempts to reconcile are not unique to a private college fraternity across the country. Our neighbors cautiously move through our towns, aware of the darkness that surrounds them, regardless of where we live. Wyoming’s small towns hold stories of atrocious crimes, too. 

Even cowboys are perpetrators. 

Even cowboys are survivors. 

Women swap horror stories in private conversations about where to be extra cautious, share recommendations of purse-sized protection devices and walk each other to their cars just in case. They don’t make these choices because of young men’s poor choices in Ithaca, New York. These choices come from experience — local and relatable. 

According to a statewide assessment from the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault/Colorado Futures Center, 25% of adult women in Wyoming have experienced sexual assault. Statistically, it would be unusual for you to not know someone who has experienced assault. And chances are, you know someone who has committed assault. 

In a Wyoming Crime Statistics report from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, only 80 of the 434 sexual assault crimes reported in 2025 were reported as perpetrated by a stranger or unknown individual. More than 8 in 10 were perpetrated by family, acquaintances and intimate partners. The dark truth isn’t a stranger in the shadows. It’s someone we know.

Cornell’s survivor reported the intimate details of her attack, left school and exchanged her planned future and her name for a pseudonym no woman wants. Jane Does across the country could line up to stretch from Laramie to Ithaca. Yet somehow they go unseen, as if the light can’t quite reach.

The pedestrian bridge in downtown Laramie is simply an unlit sidewalk. Its care is held somewhere between a national railroad corporation and a well-meaning small-town government. A lit path would be appreciated, but I’m not asking someone to change a light bulb for me. 

I want to know that you see the same dark I see. 

The Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault is a tenant of the Laramie Plains Civic Center, where the author serves as executive director.