Four years later, women are still accusing Trump of sexual assault. Here's why that matters.

After nearly half a decade of repeated allegations, another woman has publicly accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault.

Amy Dorris, a former model, said Trump forced his tongue down her throat and groped her against her will at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in 1997, when she was 24 years old, according to a report in The Guardian published Thursday. Dorris said he ignored her demands to stop.

“The allegations are totally false," Trump legal advisor Jenna Ellis said in a statement provided to USA TODAY. "We will consider every legal means available to hold The Guardian accountable for its malicious publication of this unsubstantiated story. This is just another pathetic attempt to attack President Trump right before the election.”

Expectations of accountability?

Trump has denied similar allegations from more than twenty other women, including writer E. Jean Carroll, who last year accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room, also in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegations and Carroll sued him for defamation in November in a case the Department of Justice this month has argued it should handle.

E. Jean Carroll accuses Trump of rape: Why are we so reluctant to talk about it?

Consequences have largely been reserved for Trump's accusers, rather than Trump himself, who won the presidency in spite of them. The timing of accusers' disclosures have been questioned, their appearances mocked, their characters assassinated. Carroll said she received death threats after accusing Trump of rape, and in February announced she had been fired from Elle magazine.

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Trump supporters were incredulous of allegations against him prior to the 2016 election and remain so today. On social media, users predictably skewered Dorris, noting that the presidential election is less than two months away. Many of Trump's previous accusers faced similar criticisms as did Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault prior to him securing the Democratic nomination.

Dorris, now a Boca Raton mother of 13-year-old twin daughters, knew she would face enormous blowback, said her friend Caron Bernstein.

Dorris is not political and has no agenda, Bernstein said. She was simply ready.

"It had nothing to do with anything political," said Bernstein, a rape survivor who accompanied Dorris through the decision and interviews with Lucy Osborne, the reporter who broke the story in The Guardian. "The ball dropped, and it just happened to drop now."

Bigger than Trump

Dorris' accusation — even Carroll's accusation — received far less attention than the Access Hollywood tape of October 2016.

With no evidence that coming forward would have serious consequences for the man she is accusing, why else might someone come forward?

Many survivors share their stories when it has meaning for them, not their perpetrators, say experts such as Laura Palumbo, communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

"For many survivors, it may not be that coming forward is something they want to do, but they get to a point in their life where it feels necessary, it feels by not coming forward and acknowledging what happened to them, that they're furthering their own load,"

Palumbo said. "What Me Too showed us is that not every survivor is able to hold the person who harmed them accountable. For some survivors, even when it's not going to have what others think is a fair outcome, it's still worthwhile for them. It's about being true to themselves and their experience and taking their power back."

For some, that power comes from declaring they're part of something bigger than themselves. Declaring that they have a right to take up space, to take back control they were previously denied.

"Even if he's running for the highest office in the world, she's saying, 'I'm not going to be ashamed or fearful in this moment,'" said Farrah Khan, a survivor of sexual abuse who does education across North America about consent and bystander intervention.

Coming forward can be a way of unburdening oneself, of shifting the load, Khan said.

"In the conversation we're having about public reckonings and sexualized violence, it no longer becomes a secret that we hold ourselves, but it's something that survivors get to ask the community to hold with them," she said.

Ripple effects

Public disclosures also encourage people to think about complicity. Survivors "turn the mirror and say, 'look at what's happening in the culture, what's happening in the community. This is not OK,'" Khan said.

After Me Too, satisfaction with how women are treated in the U.S. fell to a record low, and it remains at that level still, according to a poll released by Gallup in August.

It also encourages other survivors.

The National Sexual Assault Hotline experienced its biggest spike – 338% – after Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on allegations that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Calls increased 53% after New York magazine published an excerpt from Carroll’s memoir alleging Trump raped her.

Khan said when Anita Hill came forward, it left a strong impression on her. During confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas 30 years ago, Hill alleged Thomas sexually harassed her when they worked together at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her testimony drew national attention.

"I was a young girl, a child being sexually abused in my home when Anita Hill's story broke on TV. And it was the first time I saw a ... woman of color on TV talking about sexual assault, and that it was wrong," she said. "It changed me individually knowing that we don't have to be secret keepers."

On the other side, negative or apathetic public reaction can also compound feelings of shame and humiliation, which can in turn silence survivors, sometimes for years or even a lifetime.

In the '90s, when Dorris' alleged assault took place, there were numerous examples of women's abuse becoming a public punchline.

Lorena Bobbitt and others who testified at her trial said she was trapped in an emotionally, sexually and physically abusive marriage with John Wayne Bobbitt for years before severing her husband's penis with a knife. She says he beat her, raped her and belittled her. The male-dominated mainstream media humiliated her: Headline puns and late-night jabs kept the public’s focus on John Bobbitt's injury and ultimately turned Lorena Bobbitt into a caricature.

Monica Lewinsky, who has said that her relationship with former president Bill Clinton "constituted a gross abuse of power," was relentlessly ridiculed after his sexual misconduct came to light.

While one might argue women now are less likely to be mocked when they come forward with credible accusations of abuse, many argue that the public's instinct is still to believe the accused and remain skeptical of the accuser.

“When a survivor comes out and makes an accusation ... the societal response in general is to deny this accusation, then to accuse the survivor of coming out for all the wrong reasons or lying or being crazy,” said Joan Cook, a Yale psychiatry professor who specializes in trauma. "Most people, it takes them years to tell anyone."

Dorris said she knew the risks, but had two important reasons to speak out.

“My girls are about to turn 13 years old,” she said. “I want them to see that I didn’t stay quiet, that I stood up to somebody who did something that was unacceptable.”

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RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE & online.rainn.org).

If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time of day or night or chat online.

Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7, confidential support when you dial 741741.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amy Dorris joins women accusing Trump of sexual assault and it matters