Evelyn Yang, wife of New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, has released a children’s book about sexual abuse, revealing in a new interview that she was sexually assaulted as a child.
Yang revealed last year that she was sexually assaulted by her gynecologist in 2012 when she was pregnant with her first child. She testified before a grand jury about the assault, and the doctor, Robert Hadden, was later indicted on charges of abusing several victims.
Yang told “Good Morning America” in an interview released this week that the process of testifying before the grand jury triggered memories of the assault she experienced as a child.
“It was in that moment, on the stand, that I suddenly felt like a small, terrified, paralyzed child, and I realized, I’ve been here before,” Yang said.
She told “Good Morning America” that she was assaulted by a stranger at school as a child. A staff member at the school discovered the assault and intervened.
“I had an instinct that there was something off before the assault. He was being very friendly, and I think I was a little bit off guard because it was at school. And I distinctly remember telling myself ‘Don’t be rude. I don’t want to hurt his feelings,’ ” Yang told “Good Morning America,” adding that her attacker was later prosecuted and she testified against him.
Yang said that her family did not widely talk about the assault at the time and that she is curious if it’s been a “repressed memory” for other family members.
Yang is the author of a new children’s book, “A Kids Book About Sexual Abuse.” Yang said that sexual abuse is “incredibly difficult and overwhelming to talk about,” but she was inspired to write the book “to help families process.”
“The way we approach the subject, almost all the time, is reactive. We don’t talk about it until something terrible happens, and then that’s a lot to unpack in the moment. So to be able to get in front of it in a more positive way should be the goal,” she said.
Yang added that “We need to be normalizing these conversations around sexual abuse at a much earlier age.”
“We’re taught how to cross the street safely, how to say no to drugs, what to do in the event of a house fire, and, statistically, children are more likely to be sexually abused than be in a house fire, yet we don’t talk about it until it happens,” she said.
All profits from Yang’s book will benefit the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.