As Christine Blasey Ford on Thursday described Brett Kavanaugh's hand over her mouth, Beth felt an ache in her throat, 23 years after she says two men tightened their hands around her neck and raped her.
"Listening to her talk about hands being held over her mouth, I felt that suffocating feeling," said Beth, a Salt Lake City women who asked to be identified by only her first name. "I get it. I know what that's like, how powerless you are. Especially when there's two of them.
Powerlessness was a theme in the trauma described by some Utah assault victims and their advocates Thursday as Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.