Her story
From a campaign to a cause.
Susanna Gibson is a nurse practitioner, advocate and author who lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her two children and their dog, Scout.
She spent more than fifteen years in healthcare, including several years as the Lead Advanced Practice Provider for the VCU Health Division of Geriatrics, where she served as clinical lead for a joint medical home model between Medicaid, Virginia Premier Health Insurance and VCU Health and participated in the CMS Independence at Home demonstration. Years of home-based primary care gave her a close view of how health intersects with economic stability, education, gender, discrimination and violence.
In 2023 she was the Democratic nominee for Virginia's House District 57. Late in the campaign, intimate material recorded without her knowledge was distributed without her consent, mailed to voters and amplified across the internet. What followed was months of online abuse, threats and international headlines. The experience made her an unwilling expert in nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, image-based sexual abuse and the weaponization of women's bodies in public life.
In 2024 she founded MyOwn PAC, a non-partisan political action committee that supports candidates of any party dedicated to legislative reform on gender-based and sexual violence and intimate privacy, and MyOwn Image, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing technology-facilitated sexual violence through survivor support, public education and comprehensive state legislation. In September 2024, MyOwn Image announced multi-state bipartisan legislation on the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, developed with criminal justice and First Amendment advocates.
Her insights have been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, NBC News, The 19th, NewsNation and 404 Media, among others. She speaks to universities, legislatures, newsrooms, technology companies and advocacy organizations about consent, survivor-centered policy, media accountability and digital harm. Her first book, Call It What It Is, a survivor's guide to image-based abuse from “revenge porn” to deepfakes, will be published by BenBella Books in March 2027.
