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I want to preface this by saying that I don’t have anything wrong with Spirit Day. I think it’s a very good thing to show that there are so many people who think it’s okay to be queer when so many people are trying to say the opposite, and the only reason I didn’t participate this year was because of the move and the fact that I spent the day inside unpacking. Nor do I in any way want to say that queer kids don’t suffer from homophobia on a daily basis, an I don’t want to appropriate that experience for any other cause. Lastly, I am not trying to say that bullying happens to everybody, so it isn’t a queer problem. I’m trying to say something a hell of a lot more nuanced than that. As a bisexual woman who was badly bullied throughout my public school experiences, I hope you will cut me a little slack.
You hear a lot about queer kids and bullying. You hear how horrible it can be, about how it drives some kids to to suicide. You see things like the “It Gets Better” campaign, and it’s easy to look at all of this and say that bullying has become a queer problem. Bullying has become associated with the queer community the way AIDS was, or the way teen motherhood has become associated with poor black women. It’s a way of keeping it out of the nice safe homes of the parents of straight kids. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as the voices talking about bullying as a real and serious problem instead of as some kind of inane rite of passage or minor annoyance are finally being heard, society is finding a way to cast it as a problem only certain people will have to deal with. This both turns it into a problem for the queer community to solve, and silences people who are bullied for other reasons than their sexuality.
Most importantly, doing this means that bullying will never be addressed as it must be addressed if it is to be stopped, as a pervasive cultural norm that has been tolerated and tacitly encouraged for far too long. Initiatives to protect queer victims of bullying, and end the bullying of queer kids because they’re queer only chip away at the problem. Saying that it’s wrong to bully somebody because they’re queer is not the same as saying it’s wrong to bully. They say, in effect, that homophobia is bad, but bullying is okay. And that’s at the heart of the problem. The bullying of queer kids is two separate issues that are coming together and blending into one, homophobia, biphobia, trans* phobia, and straight privilege, and what I call bully culture.
Just as feminists talk about rape culture, the prevailing norms in most societies that ensure that while said societies nominally condemn rape and sexual assault, actual rapes and sexual assaults are minimized, their victims discounted, blamed, and silenced, and their perpetrators unpunished, so we need to talk about bully culture, the prevailing norms in many societies that ensure that while said societies nominally condemn bullying, actual bullying is minimized, bully victims are blamed, and bullies go unpunished and often rewarded. Just as with rape culture, your position in society effects how bully culture impacts you. The more “strikes” against you you have, you’re a child, a girl or woman, queer, not white, poor, have disabilities, not neurotypical, not Christian, whatever, the more likely you are to be bullied. The more strikes against you, the less likely you are to be supported if you try to speak up about being bullied. And depending how many and which strikes you have against you, what you hear when you try to come forward changes. For girls being bullied by boys, “Well, he just likes you and doesn’t know how to show it,” or “You’re a very pretty girl, you’ll have to get used to it.” Girls who aren’t pretty hear that one all the time too. For nonneurotypical kids and socially awkward kids, it’s “Well, if you would just try to act normal...” or for people with mental illnesses, “You’re just imagining it. You’re crazy.” we must without a doubt fight the prejudices and privilege that make these disparate groups more vulnerable to being bullied, but we must also fight bullying, and the idea that it’s okay to treat people who are less powerful than oneself like playthings.
Bully culture doesn’t just live in schools, where we hear about it most often. It lives in workplaces, where adult bullies continue to do what they have always done. Sometimes we call it sexual harassment, but usually we don’t talk about it. We see it on television and in popular culture, were brilliant assholes get away with bullying and star in shows, books, and movies as beloved characters. We see it when the hero of a show stands up to the bullies, and all of a sudden they stop, like that’s all a victim would have to do, and if they were strong like the hero, they wouldn’t be bullied. Hell, we see it in politics when men like Rush Limbaugh nakedly bully young women who have the nerve to disagree with them. Bullying has saturated society. We are marinating in it, and it is poisoning us.
I was bullied, and bullied very badly, first because I have a disability, then, because I was socially awkward, then, because I am Jewish, and then because I am bisexual, but most importantly, because the bullies could. They were not punished, none of them, and nothing I did made it better. Being bullied, and being bullied marked me out as vulnerable for my stalkers, and for many people, being a bully victim means that abusers will seek them out. We need better rules against bullying, and we need those rules enforced. We need to ensure that no one is punished for coming forward, and we need to make coming forward safe for everyone. And for God’s sake, we need to stop treating bullies like they’re cool, and like bullying is nothing. The victim is not the problem, the bully is. The victim’s queerness, disability, poorness, race, appearance, sexual activity, none of these are the problem. The problem is that somebody or many somebodies see this as a reason to bully them. This is homophobia, ableism, classism, racism, sexism, and it is also Bully Culture.
You hear a lot about queer kids and bullying. You hear how horrible it can be, about how it drives some kids to to suicide. You see things like the “It Gets Better” campaign, and it’s easy to look at all of this and say that bullying has become a queer problem. Bullying has become associated with the queer community the way AIDS was, or the way teen motherhood has become associated with poor black women. It’s a way of keeping it out of the nice safe homes of the parents of straight kids. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as the voices talking about bullying as a real and serious problem instead of as some kind of inane rite of passage or minor annoyance are finally being heard, society is finding a way to cast it as a problem only certain people will have to deal with. This both turns it into a problem for the queer community to solve, and silences people who are bullied for other reasons than their sexuality.
Most importantly, doing this means that bullying will never be addressed as it must be addressed if it is to be stopped, as a pervasive cultural norm that has been tolerated and tacitly encouraged for far too long. Initiatives to protect queer victims of bullying, and end the bullying of queer kids because they’re queer only chip away at the problem. Saying that it’s wrong to bully somebody because they’re queer is not the same as saying it’s wrong to bully. They say, in effect, that homophobia is bad, but bullying is okay. And that’s at the heart of the problem. The bullying of queer kids is two separate issues that are coming together and blending into one, homophobia, biphobia, trans* phobia, and straight privilege, and what I call bully culture.
Just as feminists talk about rape culture, the prevailing norms in most societies that ensure that while said societies nominally condemn rape and sexual assault, actual rapes and sexual assaults are minimized, their victims discounted, blamed, and silenced, and their perpetrators unpunished, so we need to talk about bully culture, the prevailing norms in many societies that ensure that while said societies nominally condemn bullying, actual bullying is minimized, bully victims are blamed, and bullies go unpunished and often rewarded. Just as with rape culture, your position in society effects how bully culture impacts you. The more “strikes” against you you have, you’re a child, a girl or woman, queer, not white, poor, have disabilities, not neurotypical, not Christian, whatever, the more likely you are to be bullied. The more strikes against you, the less likely you are to be supported if you try to speak up about being bullied. And depending how many and which strikes you have against you, what you hear when you try to come forward changes. For girls being bullied by boys, “Well, he just likes you and doesn’t know how to show it,” or “You’re a very pretty girl, you’ll have to get used to it.” Girls who aren’t pretty hear that one all the time too. For nonneurotypical kids and socially awkward kids, it’s “Well, if you would just try to act normal...” or for people with mental illnesses, “You’re just imagining it. You’re crazy.” we must without a doubt fight the prejudices and privilege that make these disparate groups more vulnerable to being bullied, but we must also fight bullying, and the idea that it’s okay to treat people who are less powerful than oneself like playthings.
Bully culture doesn’t just live in schools, where we hear about it most often. It lives in workplaces, where adult bullies continue to do what they have always done. Sometimes we call it sexual harassment, but usually we don’t talk about it. We see it on television and in popular culture, were brilliant assholes get away with bullying and star in shows, books, and movies as beloved characters. We see it when the hero of a show stands up to the bullies, and all of a sudden they stop, like that’s all a victim would have to do, and if they were strong like the hero, they wouldn’t be bullied. Hell, we see it in politics when men like Rush Limbaugh nakedly bully young women who have the nerve to disagree with them. Bullying has saturated society. We are marinating in it, and it is poisoning us.
I was bullied, and bullied very badly, first because I have a disability, then, because I was socially awkward, then, because I am Jewish, and then because I am bisexual, but most importantly, because the bullies could. They were not punished, none of them, and nothing I did made it better. Being bullied, and being bullied marked me out as vulnerable for my stalkers, and for many people, being a bully victim means that abusers will seek them out. We need better rules against bullying, and we need those rules enforced. We need to ensure that no one is punished for coming forward, and we need to make coming forward safe for everyone. And for God’s sake, we need to stop treating bullies like they’re cool, and like bullying is nothing. The victim is not the problem, the bully is. The victim’s queerness, disability, poorness, race, appearance, sexual activity, none of these are the problem. The problem is that somebody or many somebodies see this as a reason to bully them. This is homophobia, ableism, classism, racism, sexism, and it is also Bully Culture.
