Through the most painful loss, good can come, but courage and determination usually have to be in between.

Elizabeth Carlock Phillips and her family endured a terrible loss when her brother, Trey Carlock, took his life in 2019, years after he suffered sexual abuse at Kanakuk Kamps.

His sister’s mourning turned into a mission to spare other young people from abuse. A critical part of her work focused on quashing a common practice of organizations that bear responsibility for harboring abusers. Often, as part of any settlement agreement reached with a survivor, such organizations have required nondisclosure agreements.

Part of Trey Carlock’s suffering was his inability to speak out freely about his pain. Texans who are abused will no longer face that same barrier to healing.

For her tireless advocacy on behalf of those who have been subjected to sexual abuse, and for her work to see the state of Texas pass Trey’s Law, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips is a finalist for Texan of the Year.

This year, Trey’s Law brought together a powerful bipartisan coalition in the Texas Legislature. No more in our state can organizations hide behind nondisclosure agreements that often revictimize people who need settlement dollars to seek treatment but who also should be able to tell their stories.

Phillips has been relentless in exposing a pattern of abuse tied to Kanakuk, a popular camp in Branson, Mo., where generations of Texas kids have spent summers.

She has set up websites detailing a history of abuse and telling survivor stories. She has spoken up anywhere people will hear her. She has pushed for legislation in multiple states. Trey’s Law is also on the books in Missouri as of this year.

She continues to work not only on ending NDAs for sexual abuse but on expanding the time survivors have to file sexual abuse lawsuits. Statutes of limitations present a much tougher political fight against institutions that have a great deal to lose because of long histories of accepting abusers in their midst.

Trey Carlock had three perpetrators of abuse, Phillips said. The first was Pete Newman, the Kanakuk counselor turned director who spiritually, emotionally and sexually attacked him; Kanakuk as the camp that harbored Newman; and lastly, the state of Texas, with laws that favored an institution seeking to keep its secrets.

“Survivors lose at every turn,” she said. “There is nothing about this that isn’t a heavy lift on victims’ voices. And so I thought, well, my brother is in heaven. He’s whole and healed. Who’s going to speak for him and for other victims because of these NDAs? So that was the journey over time. If not me, then who?”