Temporary Protection Order granted citing coercive control RCW 7.105.010

In late 2020, I was accepted to the University of Washington to study society, ethics, and human behavior. I felt proud. That acceptance represented years of hard work and hope. But I never got the chance to start.

Before I could begin classes, a lawsuit was filed against me. The money I had set aside for school went straight to legal costs. My time, once spent studying, was consumed by court deadlines and filing responses. I was trying to push forward advocacy efforts, parent two children, and emotionally support survivors who trusted me. I had no time to rest, no space to process, and no safety net.

My therapist told me during that time that my stubbornness was keeping me alive. Looking back, she was right. I had slipped back into a state of chronic survival. I was always bracing for the next hit, constantly navigating conflict, never allowed to fall apart. The path I had carefully mapped out disappeared, but I kept going. Not because I had peace or support, but because the work mattered, and because quitting was never an option I felt allowed to consider.

Katherine McNamara aka Katie Mac didn’t just cost me my time, energy, and resources; she cost me my future, passion, and time with my family.

The Impact on Advocacy

When I shifted my advocacy work from Breaking Code Silence to ICAPA Network, it was not a retreat. It was a necessary measure to protect what mattered most. Creating advocacy infrastructure takes years of unpaid labor, collaboration, and community building. After the trademark lawsuit was filed, I made the choice to continue the work under a different name so I could preserve the mission, shield the coalition, and protect the survivors who had placed their trust in me.

The lawsuit had nothing to do with actual trademark infringement. It was a calculated attempt to seize control of a movement I had helped build. Once the legal threats began, I understood that any association with Breaking Code Silence would be twisted and used against me. More importantly, I saw how that conflict could ripple outward and be used to undermine the credibility of survivors, advocates, and partners across the broader reform effort. So I started over. Not to save myself, but to save the work.

That distinction matters. Because what happened next revealed the real intent behind the lawsuit. Within weeks, Katherine launched a public smear campaign aimed at destroying my reputation. She used the language of justice to discredit me. She framed the attack as accountability, but the impact was sabotage. Confusion spread across the advocacy community. Survivors who had finally found a place to speak out now saw those same spaces consumed by infighting, division, and legal battles.

Later I would learn that the betrayal had started long before the lawsuit. Throughout our so-called friendship, Katie Mac had been speaking about me in disparaging ways, often to people in the very networks we were trying to build. She sowed doubt and mistrust in private while presenting herself as the leader. She did not just undermine me. She eroded the collective trust that advocacy depends on to survive.

The consequences were felt far beyond me. Promising partnerships stalled. Volunteers stepped back. Survivors who had just begun to find their voices once again questioned whether it was safe to speak. The confusion and fear caused by the lawsuit and the smear campaign disrupted our momentum at a critical time. It fractured relationships that had taken years to build and forced advocates to choose sides when we needed unity the most. 

The Attacks

Katherine created multiple web pages using my full name on a website devoted to attacking me and distorting my history. There are at least three separate pages titled “Jenna Bulis,” each filled with false claims, inflammatory language, and misrepresented documents. The domain jennabulis.com was also purchased during this time. While it has not been used to publish content yet, it aligns with the larger pattern of targeted harassment. Given that she has created several pages under my name on her active smear site, it is reasonable to believe that she, or someone working with her, secured that domain as part of her broader effort to control and destroy my digital footprint. She is using advanced SEO tactics to ensure that her website ranks at the top of search engine results. If this site were truly about clearing her name, she wouldn’t be putting so much effort into destroying mine.

The content she published includes court records that were either not public or were deliberately taken out of context. These documents had nothing to do with the lawsuit she filed. Instead, they included unrelated custody records from earlier family court proceedings. Some of these documents contained allegations that had already been disproven or dismissed, yet she chose to republish them as if they were fact. None of them had any bearing on the dispute she claimed to be concerned about.

Her website is filled with defamatory lies and fabricated stories. She falsely claims that I lost custody of my children. That is entirely untrue. I have never lost custody. She falsely states that I have bipolar disorder, a serious and harmful accusation that she planted and has doubled-down on for years despite all licensed doctors’ disagreeing with her assessment. She accuses me of organizing harassment campaigns against her but provides no credible evidence that I have ever harassed her or even made disparaging comments about her. What she does share are screenshots pulled out of context and third-party statements that she attempts to link back to me, without evidence or explanation.

She has lifted language from real advocacy work, twisted survivor-centered phrases, and reframed community concerns to support a narrative that serves her agenda. While she portrays herself as a victim of harassment, her actions consistently show the opposite. She has reached out to organizations and leaders I have worked with in advocacy circles to “warn them” about me, creating suspicion where there was once trust. She has contacted my friends and family members, not to seek clarity or resolve conflict, but to pressure and intimidate. She accuses me of doxxing her, yet continues to publish personal and sensitive information about me online, including records and details that expose me and my children to risk. She has never provided evidence that she was doxed, but has repeatedly and publicly disclosed information about my private life to thousands of strangers.

These are not isolated incidents or emotional outbursts. They are part of a sustained and calculated pattern of reputational abuse. The damage extends far beyond me. Her actions have disrupted survivor communities, delayed organizing work, and forced trusted advocates to distance themselves out of fear of becoming her next target. These tactics were never about protecting the community.

The Protection Petition

In 2021, both Katherine and I filed for protection orders. Hers was denied the same day for lack of evidence. Mine was granted temporarily, but the final was denied after the court determined the dispute was tied to ongoing litigation and leaned toward a defamation matter. The judge told her clearly to stop.

She did not stop. The harassment continued. She escalated through ongoing online attacks, public mischaracterization, obsessive monitoring, and interference with my work and reputation. She tracked my social media and shared distorted narratives to discredit me.

Then, in January 2025, she created a website with three pages dedicated at my name. This was not public discourse. It was a targeted violation intended to degrade, intimidate, and violate my privacy. She tried to control my identity and rewrite my personal narrative.

The deeper I looked, the clearer it became that this was not just vindictive. It was coercive. Washington State defines coercive control as a course of conduct that unreasonably interferes with a person’s free will or liberty. This includes repeated surveillance, manipulation of records, impersonation, and interference with work or reputation. Katherine’s actions checked every box. Her fixation with discrediting me went far beyond the bounds of disagreement. It became a pattern of control.

That is why I filed again in 2025. The court reviewed the evidence and granted a temporary protection order citing the coercive control statute. That decision was not based on feelings. It was based on documentation, repeated patterns, and behavior that could no longer be ignored. Note: Several people who have experienced similar harassment patterns from Katherine wrote declarations to support my petition. These declarations have been omitted to protect victim privacy.

See the petition and TPO here.

The Free Speech Argument

Katherine McNamara claimed her actions were protected by the First Amendment and cited Catlett v. Teel as her legal basis. In that case, the Washington Court of Appeals found that the use of lawfully obtained public records, even if upsetting to the subject, could not be restricted under an anti-harassment order if the speech was on a matter of public concern. The court emphasized that transparency through public records is protected speech.

Katherine attempted to apply that logic here. She told the court she was sharing public records and speaking on matters of public interest. But that is not what happened. She first labeled me a public figure, then selectively combed through my private family court records to support a narrative designed to discredit me. She excluded the conflicting evidence, omitted the broader context, and ignored the complexity of the case. This was not an act of public service. It was a targeted character attack.

She posted nonpublic material, including a snippet of an arbitration that was never properly filed with the court (and subject to a trial de novo), private home videos that were filmed by my ex in our shared home (without my consent), and private chat logs from when we were “friends” and I believed we were speaking in confidence. These were not records meant to inform a civic discussion. Her purpose was not to contribute to a public debate. It was to harm my credibility and isolate me from professional and community networks.

Her website is embedded with advanced SEO, and cross-posted the same content across multiple social media platforms. This was not passive speech. It was an orchestrated campaign of reputational damage, calculated for digital permanence and reach.

Washington’s coercive control law, passed in 2021, addresses patterns of nonphysical abuse that damage personal safety, dignity, and autonomy. The law is scheduled for revision in July 2025. Until then, there remains a dangerous gap where speech protections can be manipulated to enable digital harassment. Katherine exploited that gap to build a platform not of transparency, but of abuse. Katherine’s brief has been edited to remove all non-legal argument.

Through communication between our lawyers, I offered Katherine McNamara settlement offer: Name which posts (of mine) she finds offensive, and I would remove. In return, I asked for wwaspsurvivorstruth.com and breakingcodesilencelawsuit.com to come down. Additionally, to cease all legal action between us, and we would go no-contact/ no mention for life. She declined. Then she requested $10,000 in attorney’s fees for the below argument:

See the Respondent’s brief McNamara filed here.

View the full hearing transcript here.

The Legal Loophole

Ultimately, holding Katherine McNamara accountable would require filing a civil defamation lawsuit. That would mean another round of litigation, which is exactly what she is attempting to provoke. Her so-called data preservation notice was not a good faith effort to protect evidence. It was a pretext to gain access to my private devices and personal communications.

If I filed suit, I would be forced into discovery. That would open the door to the very invasion of privacy I am trying to prevent. Seeking protection should not require surrendering the boundaries I am fighting to uphold.

So, I am not taking the bait. I am doing what she fears most: telling the truth, naming the abuse, and documenting the pattern. The law has not yet caught up to the way that defamation unfolds online, but the record will. The evidence speaks. This is not about hurt feelings or a disagreement between former colleagues. This is a sustained campaign of harassment that exploits public records, weaponizes legal procedures, and violates my basic right to privacy. Katherine McNamara has misused her platform of advocacy to justify targeted digital abuse. Her goal has never been transparency. It has always been control.

This is exactly the kind of situation coercive control legislation was designed to prevent. But right now, the gaps between civil, criminal, and family law allow bad actors to misuse the system. Survivors are retraumatized, not protected. The temporary order I was granted marks progress, but it also underscores how far we still have to go. Digital coercion is not theoretical. It is real. And the harm it causes is lasting.

This is not an accusation. It is a line in the sand. Just because something is legal does not make it ethical. Advocacy should not be a shield for abuse. The grey area is where harm hides, and it is time we shine light there. Ethics must matter more than tactics.