EMANCIPATRIX Women’s Sexual Health & Wellness Alliance celebrated its grand opening this month with an open house at its new location inside Lake Square Mall in Leesburg.

Guests gathered to tour the new space, meet founder Georgia Skyers and learn about services designed to address women’s sexual health, intimacy and healing in a comfortable, judgment-free setting.

Georgia, MSN, RN and a board-certified sexologist, has spent years working in sexual health, wellness and advocacy. She is also a sexual assault nurse examiner. Her new practice provides a physical space where women can seek counseling, education and support for concerns that are often difficult to discuss.

“Women deserve a place where nothing about their bodies, intimacy or pleasure is too uncomfortable to talk about,” Georgia says.

Marie McKenzie, a SANE nurse from North Orlando and board member of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, has worked alongside Georgia in the sexual assault field and considers her a close friend and colleague.

“We both work in sexual assault and we are also both Jamaican so we bonded right away,” Marie says. “She’s my sister in this profession and just a really wonderful person.”

“There is an ‘after’ that isn’t considered because the trauma itself is exhausting. But here there is a space for women to come and get the help they need from someone who understands all sides of this experience.”

That “after” was a common theme among those who attended the opening.

Lake and Sumter County victim advocate Mary Strickland says healing after sexual assault can include learning how to reconnect with friends, family, colleagues and intimate partners, as well as rebuilding a relationship with one’s own body.

“Having a place without judgment is so important to fully realize what healing looks like,” Mary says. “It can be reconnecting with your own body and reestablishing agency because often you can end up feeling like a foreigner to that person in the mirror.”

Mary says sexual assault does not take away who someone is and recovery can include working through physically painful intimacy, learning to connect with oneself and eventually with others.

EMANCIPATRIX’s services extend beyond sexual trauma. Georgia also works with women experiencing changes in desire and intimacy related to menopause, medications, stress, cancer treatment, pelvic pain and other physical or emotional changes.

Counseling and sexual wellness services can help women understand changes in their bodies, address painful intimacy or loss of desire and reconnect with themselves and their partners.

The practice also offers intimate wellness products addressing concerns including dryness and discomfort.

Derieth L. Sutton, president of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority alumnae association, has worked with Georgia through the sorority’s domestic violence initiative in Lake and Sumter counties.

“There is always an after,” Derieth says. “The shock, then there is, ‘Where do we go from here?’ This is the piece where there is a real need and this beautiful, calming space can provide that.”

Georgia recently moved the practice from another location and says the larger setting allows her to expand the services she can provide while offering clients greater comfort and privacy.

“The new space gives us room to fully deliver the kind of care we’re capable of providing,” Georgia says. “It’s larger, more private and intentionally designed so women can feel comfortable while receiving services that require more space, including hands-on dilator assistance and other intimate wellness support.”

She says creating the right atmosphere was equally important.

“I wanted it to feel less like a clinical office and more like a beautiful, elevated space where a woman can walk in, exhale and know she is being cared for,” Georgia says. “More room means we can do more, and do it well.”

EMANCIPATRIX Women’s Sexual Health & Wellness Alliance is located in Suite 303 at Lake Square Mall, 10401 US Highway 441, Leesburg.

Photos by Gina Horan