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Tina Vaughn is a rape victim advocate through the Women’s Center of Jacksonville, a yoga instructor and a home-schooling mother of two. She begins each day with yoga and meditation and can usually be found hanging out with her children, playing games, taking walks or slack-lining (a balance sport similar to walking along a tightrope, only this one is slack). On any given day, one might find her in the middle of a hula-hoop or a passionate conversation with friends, getting lost in the world in a book or a smooth red wine.

Tina Vaughn gets on her soapbox

“Throughout my life, I have had one too many hands on my body that did not belong. The hands invaded my space, objectified my being and exploited my trust. There was no one to speak for me when I was too young, scared or confused to speak for myself.

“The silence in me was short-lived because this period of powerlessness birthed an advocate and as such, I am a first responder to women in the wake of varying degrees of violence and intrusion upon their body and minds. 

“My role is to facilitate space — space that [the victim] defines and fills as she processes the invasion of her body and mind. In that space she can explode or implode, she can come undone or piece back together, but she will not be told how to act or how to feel. Nor will she be alone, overlooked or ignored.

“I do this because I believe in autonomy and empowerment, because hands don’t belong where they were never invited and for every woman out there who fights against becoming wreckage of misdirected rage.”