Invisible Girls A closer look at antigay harassment shows many have yet to see what young women face daily in school by Nancy Goldstein

"It quickly became obvious from our research that the abuse of LGBT youth is predicated on the belief that girls and boys must adhere to rigid rules of conduct, dress, and appearances based on their sex…. For girls, that means they must be attentive to and flirtatious with boys and must accept a subordinate status to boys." –Hatred in the Hallways report, Human Rights Watch, 2001.

Jamie Nabozny’s struggle is now legendary within the LGBT community. In 1996, the former Wisconsin high school student successfully sued his school officials for failing to protect him from the vicious antigay attacks that made his life hell from the time he came out in 7th grade until he was forced to leave without his diploma four years later. During that time he was routinely called names, spit upon, and beaten. In one nightmarish incident, he was subjected to a mock rape in a science lab by two of his classmates, who told him that he should enjoy it; 20 other classmates looked on and laughed. His principal responded to his report of the assault by telling him that "boys will be boys" and that if he was "going to be so openly gay," he should "expect" such behavior from his fellow students. But the court responded differently, ordering school officials to pay Nabozny $900,000 in damages. The precedent Nabozny’s case set was clear: Schools nationwide could be held responsible for failing to protect their students from antigay harassment. Word was out.

But it’s far less well known that nearly one quarter of all lesbian and bisexual female students–and six percent of their female heterosexual peers–report being victims of the very same horror that Nabozny suffered: rape or attempted rape by their male classmates. Why is it, then, that the antigay abuse of girls has not been accorded the same attention as that of boys? For one, studies of female students are rare; it’s rarer still for the results to find their way into print. For another, antigay harassment for women is differently expressed–and insidiously linked to the harassment they get for just being female. We need to expand our concept of antigay harassment to include the ways in which lesbian and bisexual girls are targeted for their gender as well as sexual orientation. Until then, we cannot come up with the tools to recognize and intervene adequately in their suffering.

In 2001, Human Rights Watch did a landmark report, "Hatred in the Hallways: Discrimination and Violence Against LGBT Students in U.S. Public Schools," based on in-depth interviews with 140 youth and 130 teachers (including many of the youth in H.A.T.C.H., the Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals). In its discussion of the discrimination that young lesbian women face, the report reminds us that when we recognize as homophobic only those attacks on girls that explicitly target their sexual orientation, we risk rendering antigay violence against girls–and the existence of the girls themselves–invisible.

Young lesbians do not experience sexism and homophobia as separate events; instead, the two forms of harassment are mutually reinforcing. It is simply impermissible, according to rigid rules of social behavior, for girls to reject boys. It is another unforgivable transgression for girls to "compete" with boys for the attention of other girls.

The Human Rights Watch study uses female-inclusive research and analyzes its data in female-inclusive ways. Its definition of harassment includes non-verbal harassment, indirect verbal harassment, "horseplay," and implicit physical violence–all of which affect girls, though they’re often downplayed by authority figures under the twin rubrics of "harmless behavior" and "boys will be boys." Using this definition, boys who stare and make gestures regarding a girl’s body or behavior; who talk loudly about "bitches" and body parts when they’re around girls; who block girls from passing in the hallway; trip them; tug at their clothes; and ask if they can "party" with them and their girlfriends are engaging in sexual harassment layered with homophobic violence. These actions are just as antigay as the more "familiar" type of harassment directed at Nabozny: name-calling, bus-stop bullying, and schoolyard beatings.

The 2000 study quoted within Hatred in the Hallways takes the rare step of comparing lesbian and bisexual girls to heterosexual girls. The majority of all girls K-12, regardless of sexual orientation, experience intense sexual harassment in their schools; thus antigay harassment faced by lesbian and bisexual females is compounded by the simple act of being female. Of those female students, lesbian and bisexual girls are targeted for even more, and more violent, sexual harassment than are their heterosexual counterparts–in every conceivable category, from being called "sexually offensive names" (72 percent vs. 63 percent) to being "touched, brushed up against, or cornered in a sexual way" (63 percent vs. 52 percent), from being "grabbed" or "having their clothes pulled in a sexual way" (50 percent vs. 44 percent) to being the victims of attempted rape or rape (23 percent vs. 6 percent).

Regardless of their sexual orientation, girls who have been assaulted are just as likely as Nabozny to be disbelieved, accused of inviting the abuse, characterized as troublemakers, or dismissed if they protest to school officials. "The boys feel free to grab the girls as they walk down the halls, but when girls complain to the administration, they are accused of lying," says Halona T. "Girls in my school expect to be harassed," explained Sabrina L. "But we know not to say anything."

It only makes sense, then, that a lesbian or bisexual girl, observing her school officials’ failure to intervene in "normal" sexual harassment, won’t turn to them when she’s harassed on the basis of her sexual orientation. "At least when I was harassed as a girl, I could talk to the support counselor–not the principal, but the counselor," says Halona T. "When I was harassed as a lesbian, I couldn’t talk to anyone."

Too often, the menacing behaviors boys exhibit toward girls in schools is misread as heterosexual "play"–a "normal," "natural" part of growing up male and female that doesn’t hurt anyone. When boys harass girls by making statements about wanting to "watch" or "join" the girls, adults rarely recognize that girls perceive this form of harassment as an invasion of their privacy and an implicit threat of sexual violence. This betrayal of lesbian and bisexual girls by the very adults who are supposed to look after them is often accompanied with betrayal by their gay and bisexual male peers. The boys are routinely unwilling to affirm them–"Unlike young gay men we interviewed, none of the girls we talked with reported feeling protected or supported by gay male peers"–and quick to condemn them: "Several of the young gay men we interviewed expressed very sexist and sometimes homophobic views of lesbians. One young man thought there was nothing wrong with calling girls ‘bitches’ but thought that calling gay men ‘faggot’ was unacceptable."

The most intense gender enforcement and persecution–from all sides–is reserved for those girls who stray furthest from gender stereotypes. (The persecution that transgender youth face for challenging gender stereotypes is severe and complex in unique ways.) Girls who are perceived to be "butch," in appearance and/or behavior, are most frequently the targets of abuse and are least likely to get the support of school officials. "The principal thought that I was a hard ass and to blame for everything that happened before I was hit by a brick–why would he change his mind now?" asks Nikki L., a 14-year-old lesbian. Even other, more conforming lesbian and bisexual girls can be as punishing in their enforcement of gender norms as the most rigid school official. "Lesbian girls, we dress like girls. ‘Dyke’ is out of here," scoffs Marianne T.

The cycle of oppression that entraps young bisexual and lesbian women is neither natural nor inevitable, and it spins with the help of a whole lot of people: the fellow students who harass them; the school officials who close their eyes to the abuse; the gay and bisexual male peers who look the other way. And then there’s us: the parents, advocates, and onlookers who unwittingly perpetuate the suffering that the girls and young women routinely endure by failing to open our eyes to the incessant, often brutal, ways in which their sexuality is controlled on a daily basis in our schools. Breaking that cycle is an act in two parts.

Our first step in ending harassment against young women is recognizing it for what it is. On a practical level, that means expand our definition of antigay harassment to recognize the ways in which it plays on sexism to manifest in the lives of girls. Our second step as citizens, educators, friends, parents, and teachers is to make it clear that the harassment of girls is, in fact, "unnatural"–corroding school social environments and destroying a girl’s own sense of herself–and to take every opportunity to intervene and educate that comes our way.

Every person has the right to determine the course of his or her own life, full of promise and free of intimidation. An increased willingness on the part of advocates to recognize and address the ways in which female students are harassed will ensure this right to self-determination, and increase the likelihood that all students have access to a quality education, free from fear or intimidation.

Editor’s note: Nancy Goldstein is educational resources manager for GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), and this article first appeared in GLSEN’s magazine, Respect. You can read the Human Rights Watch’s report "Hatred in the Hallways: Discrimination and Violence Against LGBT Students in U.S. Public Schools" at www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uslgbt.