The PSL just released two documents related to the recent Marissa Sanchez post detailing her experiences at the national level of the PSL. I'm going to be posting both of them as well as their full text for archival purposes.

I should note a couple things before I link these things:

  1. At multiple points, the report mentions that Marissa was reportedly fine and thankful during and after the immediate events of this incident and it's cover up. This is shown to be an example of proof that she was fine at the time, and leads into building the case that this is a factional decision. However, I am not convinced that this means she is cynically using this to split the party for her own ends. Betrayal Blindness is a collection of responses and symptoms broadly related to a person being betrayed by someone whom they rely on for financial, personal, romantic, or political needs. In order to come to terms with my experience of the same exact tendencies on a local level I read the book "Betrayal Blindness" by Jennifer Freyd, and I implore everyone to read it as well.
  2. Repeatedly they claim this is the result of a factional dispute. That might even be true in some ways, perhaps Marissa saw that there was a different way to organize going forward and it gave her the ability to be able to accept the abuse she faced. This, however, doesn't have to only come from a sense of macabre cynicism, being able to finally use her trauma as a loaded gun to split the party for her own selfish ends as described in the article. For myself, when I stepped away from the party for my Leave of Absence, I was able to begin to be engaged in mass organizing work that I wasn't in prior, that I didn't have the time for. This has given me the courage to be able to stand up and say that I don't think is acceptable at all.
  3. I am not in a faction, have not been in communication with anyone in a faction, and my disgust is only colored by my own similar experiences and emotional waves being thrown right back in my face as someone who's faced the exact same tactics myself. I'm genuinely just a trans woman by myself, I have some friends and comrades, but our local branch is still up in the air

The party routinely expects things like this to be leaked, so they prepare for the possibility. Given they already know we're going to do this, I'm just going to share the documents here for you and others here, and I leave it up to you and your comrades to decide how you feel about the party and it's current leadership. For me, the emphasis on how this fits into factional warfare is not only not convincing, but honestly disgusting.

Comprehensive Report from the Central Committee in Response to Marissa Sanchez’s Letter

NDC Statement (Sept. 2026), the password is ndcstatement

c\main so main

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[–] 11 points 4 days ago (13 children)

Can any of this be independently corroborated? Cuz otherwise its just she said they said, right?

The Party is obviously going to be on edge after a faction led by a relatively high ranking party member split publicly. Especially if it seems like people are coming out to stir the pot!

None of this changes what I think or said in the other thread about this incident. NDC needs to continuously raise their standards and improve their operating procedures. The background misogyny andremoved culture in the US is intense. I fully expect SA to happen all the time in big groups of Americans, its an extremely and unfortunately common occurrence. The fact that it happens in the party shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who takes SA seriously. Not because the party is especially bad, but because its made of people living in a country where SA happens all the time.

We also need to get all parties involved into some kind of therapy to help them process their behavior and their trauma.

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  • [–] 30 points 4 days ago* (6 children)

    It's not he said she said, the reality is the central committee and Marissa and Eugene himself agreed that what Eugene did was wrong. The committee for some bizarre reason kept him on. They then go on to wax poetic about how great Eugene, the admitted sexual predator, is. The whole committee needs to be removed to avoid a split.

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  • [+] -1 points 4 days ago (4 children)
  • [–] 27 points 4 days ago (3 children)

    Because they thought they could use the sexual predator to their advantage, and unsurprisingly that backfired

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  • [–] [S] 32 points 4 days ago (1 child)

    For my part, I know vaguely that Chris either left or was suspended from the DFW Branch last year over matters related to sexual misconduct. I was never told the full story, but I know those tendencies to be true.

    Further, I think the issue is not completely that it occurred in the first place. Organizations should and need to plan for the inevitability that sexual harassment, assault, andremoved will occur, and it's not a complete condemnation of an organization if a member, even a founding member, was found to have done this. However it's condemning if the organization did not respond adequately, and after the fact still insists on belittling the person who was abused, I do not feel it's safe. I also can't say this enough, I did experience many of the same tendencies from my national liaison which is part of what makes this so convincing for me.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 days ago

    I'm not trying to discount your experiences! I think raising the standards is the only way to ensure that these damaging tendencies are eliminated. I also get why you feel the way you do. I'm not trying to be combative, I'm just a really analytical person so sometimes I can come across a little abrasive.

    Maybe the party cannot be fixed, but I'm still trying to determine if that is the case or not.

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  • It's kinda been a long running open secret that the org is pretty terrible when it comes to this specific topic. A similar scenario from a couple years ago.

    A description of controversy on Prolewiki "The PSL has been accused for decades of being cult-like in its organization methods and permitting sexual harassment and protecting sexual abusers (in locations across the country including Philadelphia, Carbondale, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Albuquerque).[16][17]"

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  • [–] 12 points 4 days ago (2 children)

    Other thread? Where can I get more info on this factional split? First I have heard of it

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  • [–] 6 points 4 days ago

    I received a message the other day trying to convince me to split. The faction stuff mentioned in this letter is real. I think you can read more about it in an old post I made with the committee's responding to Walter's letter, too, but idk if a lot of the faction stuff has made it out of internal PSL discussions yet. It seems to be an ongoing thing considering I just got the message a couple days ago.

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