SAVING GRACE

There is an argument to be made that Grace Tame is now Australia’s most famous woman: as the face of the country’s #metoo and #LetHerSpeak movements, a feminist icon, and a passionate advocate for an end to sexual violence.

All the clichés and hyperbole apply: she is the woman of the moment, the voice of a generation, a warrior survivor who also happens to be beautiful.

And all the clichés don’t, because Tame continues to defy and subvert them.

“It was beyond conception as a 15-year-old that this was where I would be in 10 years’ time,” Tame, tells the Listener from the Hobart rental home she shares with partner Max Heerey.

“Anything that happens to you at that developmental stage shapes you, and it lasts. Certainly, something as impactful as a physical experience, an experience of grooming and psychological rewiring: your neural pathways become affected and changed forever.”

Since she was named Australian of the Year in January, the 26-year-old’s life has exploded. Gone are the days when a training run around Hobart could be peaceful: Tame is now recognised, confided in and spontaneously hugged almost everywhere she goes.

She has become a regular on political panels and current affairs shows – where she shares her knowledge and first-hand experience of child sexual abuse – she is also a sought-aft er guest speaker (her appearances routinely sell out) who is writing a book and about to launch a campaign to bring consent and sexual violence legislation under one national framework, rather than differing from state to state.

“Anything that happens to you at that developmental stage, as a child, shapes you, and it lasts.”

Police departments, including an elite human-trafficking squad in Los Angeles, regularly use Tame as a consultant, because she is both an articulate and knowledgeable expert on grooming and child sexual abuse – and a candid survivor.

“Yes, discussion of child sexual abuse is uncomfortable, but nothing is more uncomfortable than the abuse itself,”