Story by Hannah Lee
Graphic by Alex Gorry
Audio by Nicole Vandiford
April is sexual assault awareness month, but as people consider the MeToo movement, they may be unaware of the absence of the LGBTQ communities. Without this representation and awareness, people within these communities lack validation. Nicole Vandiford reports.
In October, what became known as the #MeToo movement caught fire. Scores of women began openly discussing sexual assault and discrimination by prominent men. Men were sued, lost jobs and went to jail. The public discussion continues today.
But not among the LGBTQ communities. With the exception of Kevin Spacey and Terry Crews, where are the other stories?
One of the openly gay politicians in North Carolina is unaware of the lack of LGBTQ voices in the #MeToo movement. Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, is an active member of Equality NC which provides resources and help for underrepresented people and communities.
She questioned why more media attention hasn’t included assaults and harassment of LGBTQ persons.
“It’s hard to understand if there’s willful omission or a negligent omission,” Butler said. “That’s kind of important because if it’s willful then you just unleash the queens and let them do their damage. But if it’s negligent omission, which I suspect, it’s a matter of education.”
In the media, there are cover stories and headlines filled with the names of people like Harvey Weinstein or Larry Nassar, but there are few instances where homosexual assault makes the center stage.
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The percentage of people who experience sexual violence or harassment in the LGBTQ communities is staggering in comparison to heterosexual individuals.
According to CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 44 percent of lesbians and 61 percent of bisexual women experience rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner, compared with 35 percent of heterosexual women.
Transgender people and bisexual women face the most alarming rates of sexual violence — 47 percent of transgender people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetimes and nearly half (48 percent) of bisexual women are rape survivors.
“I guess every movement takes on momentum from organizers and they very well may not have been aware of those statistics,” Butler said.
However, most of the dialogue occurs between people digitally, so it’s difficult to pinpoint which individual organizers are responsible. Therefore, it’s harder to determine what drives different trends in the #MeToo movement and the faces behind it. It’s more of a collective, online effort.
But April Callis, assistant director of the UNC LGBTQ Center, has been educating students about LGBTQ communities for almost 10 years, and she said it’s often been this way.
“This narrative that we hear when we talk about sexual assault highlights the cis straight female victim,” Callis said. “There is a story painted that’s always this hetereosexual attack that isn’t really portraying what the statistics are showing us.”
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Kate Knott, a transgender pansexual woman from eastern North Carolina, has never experienced sexual assault or harassment. But she’s very receptive to the fact that she doesn’t feel quite welcomed in her conservative community. She still hasn’t come out to her family and many friends.
“It very well could be that there are not many people coming forward because at least for me it’s already terrifying to have that feeling of rejection,” Knott said.
And feelings don’t even compare to actually being rejected by her community. That also weighs on her decision to be open about her identity.
If LGBTQ communities are not comfortable enough to publicly identify themselves, how can they do the same and have their part in the #MeToo movement? What has been their part?
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Madeline Cofer, UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate, identifies as bisexual or pansexual — it’s interchangeable to her at this point. On Facebook, she’s the administrator of a group called “Babes who Gay,” a group dedicated for LGBTQ females to speak openly about their personal experiences and issues with one another.
“I am glad that group exists just in case somebody wants to come on there and share their experience because it is important to be validated,” Cofer said. “Especially by other members of your community. Our experiences are valid. Who we are is valid. It’s healthy to talk about this stuff and to realize you’re not alone.”
Cofer needed validation especially on New Year’s Eve at a bar in Raleigh when a man approached her from behind. He addressed her with masculine pronouns. But when she turned around, he realized Cofer was a female and immediately responded by putting his hands on her.
“Oh, I’d totally have sex with you,” he said along those lines.
“Oh, OK… I’m not really interested in men,” Cofer said.
“Oh, but I love bisexual women. I love lesbians,” he said.
That was one of the first major instances of harassment Cofer experienced as a bisexual woman. And, it stuck. She won’t forget it.
Cofer did her best to strike him down. She asked him to leave her alone in a harsh and tense voice. She gave him aggravated, cold looks. But it took several persistent times before he finally got the message and walked away.
There was only so much she could do. There is only so much LGBTQ females can do. In North Carolina, there is still that lingering wonder and concern for the safety of LGBTQ communities in public places.
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Hannah Skjellum, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student and lesbian, said there is also a lack of understanding of sexual abuse within the LGBTQ communities, not just outside of it.
When she was 18, she found herself in a relationship with a 21-year-old. She felt exploited by her partner because she was still so young and trying to understand her sexuality. Many of her gay friends told her they had similar experiences dating older partners and that it was a normal part of gay kids becoming adults.
She then realized her personal awareness of her own relationship was not validated by her own community.
“I think that’s a perception that people say that you have to talk about this, then this, then this,” Skjellum said. “But that’s not fair. You can’t talk about these issues all at the same time and say these can all be important and matter.”
What Skjellum means is before #MeToo stories can come from the LGBTQ communities, the conversation needs to start with: Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about the uneasiness people have when they approach LGBTQ discussions.
Callis agreed. Sexual assault is already a difficult topic of discussion and pairing that with voices from the LGBTQ communities just complicates the subject even more.
“When you are talking about sexual assault that doesn’t fit into this pattern or vision of what it should look like: one, you don’t have the language to talk about it; but two, people don’t believe you or they dismiss it,” Callis said.
“Everything that goes outside the typical narrative often times the reaction that people give is disbelief. There is no validation, so it makes it harder for that person to continue to tell their story.”
