Some people do not grow, evolve, and change. They rebrand. In this episode of the We Survive Abuse Podcast, Tonya GJ Prince explores a familiar pattern in abuse, sexism, and misogyny: the person who reinvents themselves just enough to escape responsibility while still participating in the same culture of silencing violence and abuse against women and girls.

Through the short fable The Man Who Changed His Coat, this episode examines how harmful people often trade in old language for softer words, new identities, cleaner images, spiritual vocabulary, public innocence, or claims of growth without doing the hard work of repair. Because a new coat is not the same as a changed heart.

This conversation is for survivors, advocates, truth-tellers, and anyone who has watched someone cause violence and abuse, rename themselves, refuse accountability, and then accuse women of being divisive for remembering the stones. We are talking about self-exemption, silence, reinvention, bystanderism, and the dangerous lie that “I am not that man anymore” should end the conversation. At We Survive Abuse, we do not confuse image repair with transformation. 

For most people, true transformation is indeed possible, but we listen for the truth beneath the costume.