Amanda Nguyen Authored the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Act — She Is Also a Survivor

In April 2025, Amanda Nguyen was one of six women, including celebrities like Katy Perry and Gayle King, who boarded a Blue Origin flight that brought the crew to the boundary of space. She broke a record on that trip, becoming the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space. Nguyen is no stranger to busting through barriers. Her parents were refugees from Saigon who met in the United States and hoped to achieve the American dream. More than three decades later, their daughter made headlines.

The Blue Origin flight wasn't the first time Nguyen was front and center in the news. She found herself in the spotlight over 10 years ago when her sexual assault led to the creation of a law. As she told The Guardian, the passing of the Sexual Assault Survivor's Bill of Rights Act "felt like a curse was breaking." What happened to Nguyen? Here's what we know.

Nguyen has revisited her own rape story numerous times. In March 2025, she spoke with NPR about the 2013 assault that occurred mere months before she graduated from Harvard University. After it happened, Nguyen submitted a Jane Doe rape kit, which allowed her to remain anonymous. She did this out of fear. "I felt like I had worked my entire life to have a future ahead of me." That future included plans to work at NASA or perhaps the CIA.

The young college student was afraid that if she had an active court case, she wouldn't be able to pass a background check. As a former White House intern, Nguyen knew how arduous the process was. Once she found out the state of Massachusetts has a 15-year statute of limitations for reporting rape, Nguyen decided she would wait. But that wasn't entirely up to her.

In Massachusetts, an anonymous rape kit will be destroyed in six months unless the victim files an extension. This meant it would remain untested. "I actually found out when I started sharing my story publicly that this was an experience survivors all across the United States were experiencing and oftentimes also experiencing other things that were very unfair," she told NPR.

When Nguyen started looking into similar cases in different states, she discovered that some afforded even less time than six months. New York state, for example, will destroy a rape kit after 30 days. She understood that in order for things to really change, new legislation on a federal level was needed. When she began speaking to lawmakers, Nguyen did not share her story. She quickly realized that letting them know she was a survivor was the only way to get the attention needed.

In 2014 Nguyen founded RISE, a nonprofit organization that protects the civil rights of sexual assault and rape survivors. Two years later, legislation Nguyen helped draft was being introduced to Congress, per NBC News. Soon after, President Obama was signing the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act into law which protects the right to have the evidence of a rape kid preserved and helps victims navigate the complicated system that Nguyen had to deal with.