The statements below were published on The Liz Library.org website by Elizabeth J. Kates, JD of the Law Offices in Pompano Beach, FL. This site is clearly biased against the notion of false memories and Dr. Elizabeth Loftus‘ research on memory in particular. That’s just fine with me. That writer is welcome to her opinions. What that writer is not welcome to is to distort the facts of this case.
What I find outrageous is to report a case of a victim of sexual assault, Debbie Nathan of New York City, USA, and then link that assault to the victim’s political beliefs, in this case supporting false memory. Ms. Kates takes it a step further and insinuates that Ms. Nathan had it coming to her.
What you will read below is one of the most appalling statements I’ve read. And below it I will present some facts from the case:
The Liz Library
“May 10, 2010: Journalist Debbie Nathan, 59, false memory syndrome true believer, and famed defender of the “sex work industry”, claims she was raped in a busy NYC park in February in broad daylight by a virgin teenage boy. Multiple police officers report the incident otherwise after, apparently, a two-hour interview, but Nathan convinces Manhattan D.A. that Nathan’s version of the events is correct; he gets NYPD to apologize. Whoa. What’s good for the goose, not? Hypocrisy? Enlightenment?” Retrieved 4/20/11. Full Story: The Liz Library
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Facts of case: Ms. Nathan did Not claim rape. She reported attempted rape and in the article below the writer clearly states that fact.
NYPD Forced to Apologize Publicly to Rape Victim for Downgrading Her Attack
The Village Voice
by Grahm Rayman, May 10, 2010
“Last week, the Voice revealed that a cop had audiotaped his superior officers during roll calls at the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn for more than a year.
Those tapes show vividly that NYPD street cops are told by superiors to “downgrade” crime reports whenever possible, such as convincing a victim to file a “stolen property” complaint even after being physically assaulted in a robbery.
Now, the Voice has learned that the NYPD downgraded a felony sexual assault in a park in upper Manhattan earlier this year to a misdemeanor. …
Harriet Lessel, the director of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, an association of a wide variety of groups involved in sexual assault treatment and prevention, says that NYPD downgrading of sexual assaults from felonies to misdemeanors has become a growing problem over the past 18 months. …We are trying to figure out how to do something about it.
…”I was terrified for my safety and my life,” Nathan says.
…After awhile, the Special Victims unit told the officers that the crime was misdemeanor “forcible touching.”
Nathan insisted that it was an attempted rape, a felony. “I argued that the force used against me, the masturbation, and the veritable kidnapping constituted far more than a misdemeanor,” Nathan says.
Retrieved 4/20/1. Full Story: Village Voice
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Ms. Nathan, in my opinion, was brave in her attempt to hold the NYPD accountable for reducing felony assaults on women to misdemeanors. She made her story public in an effort to help all women who are assaulted. What Ms. Kates is trying to do with her statements against Ms. Nathan is beyond this writer’s comprehension.
Is this what the memory debates have come to? Have we, as a society, grown that callous and vengeful towards people with differing ideas and beliefs than ours? Frightening, simply frightening.
Questioning Dissociative Identity Disorder, Multiple Personalities, and Plurals 
V
/ 05/11/2011Yet another case of a recovered memory advocate hurting real victims of abuse and contributing to the degradation of women.
This isn’t surprising. My own observations of my mother’s DID were that she was turned from an adult woman into a highly sexualized child. She then abused and neglected her own children (especially her daughters!) while her male psychiatrists reaped financial and professional benefits.
My mother talked in baby voices for years, and pretended she was people she wasn’t, and she somehow believed she was increasing her liberation in this way. Apparently, feminism to some people means women pretending to be little girls and describing abuse in graphic sexual detail to men for hours and hours and hours.
DID therapy has hurt men, but I think it hurts women as much or even more. It steals adulthood and personhood, which are absolutely the most precious things we have.
I wish Debbie Nathan the best in her healing. I am glad the NYPD was held accountable in some way.
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Jeanette Bartha
/ 05/11/2011@V. I agree, women who claim to have DID are reduced to sexualized children. I, for one, have come to see my former psychiatrist as a predator because he could never hear enough stories about rape and torture.
When women degrade women in the manner that The Liz Library did, it is disturbing. Her website claims to be an advocacy for children, but she misrepresents so much in who she misquotes and unsuspecting women looking for answers and/or support are inclined, I think, to believe her – particularly because she is a lawyer. Many people think lawyers may be bottom feeders, but they are supposed to deal with fact. Well, I suppose The Liz Library did deal with facts – but she choose to distort them. Maybe that’s what lawyers do.
Debbie Nathan is a socially minded journalist and I commend her for doing more than her part to insure that women who may be sexually assaulted in New York City, USA are treated respectfully and that the perpetrators get prosecuted properly.
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doug mesner
/ 05/10/2011this elizabeth kates is clearly a depraved and malicious individual. it is always disturbing when these types parade about as advocates for children, when they really have nothing to do with children at all. what they really want is to assert themselves as grown victims of child abuse, even if it means invoking a conspiracy theory to explain away a lack of any evidence for a history of abuse that wasn’t even remembered till some magical therapist helped to “recover” it.
she suggests some type of ironic justice in this assault upon nathan, but why? does she think that nathan’s common sense dissection of satanic ritual abuse hysteria culminates into a message that rape itself isn’t real, or doesn’t happen? for that matter, what about nathan’s position does this sadistic “lady” disagree with? this seems to imply that elizabeth kates is a raving conspiracy lunatic who still holds to long debunked notions of a satanic cult conspiracy.
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Jeanette Bartha
/ 05/10/2011@Doug, thanks for your thoughts. I found this one of the most disturbing bits of “information” I’ve found from a “professional” i.e. Liz Kates. To find delight in the injury of another is appalling.
What people like Liz don’t understand is the fundamentals of politics. When women fight women and all real issues on the table, for instance rolling back Roe v. Wade to end the right for women to choose and get gyn health care are hidden from view and the legislation passes right under our stuffy noses.
Why one woman would have an opinion like that about another woman is more than sad.
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Jeanette Bartha
/ 05/10/2011I think people like Liz would benefit from a long hot stroll on a march through the streets of Washington, D.C., USA. I’ve done so many times. After that, if her opinions don’t change, I’m at a loss.
Oops, what I am referring to is a March on Washington for women’s right, human rights, reproductive rights, medical care rights, peace, anti-nukes, gay rights, and the right to have rights. When in a crowd of tens of thousands of people struggling towards a similar goal what I find is that we have more in common than we do differences. Much of the time, that is.
Activism goes way beyond sitting on a chair in front of a computer.
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