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Psychologists examine attacks on homosexuals Gays and lesbians bore the brunt of hate violence in 1994 compared to their relative numbers in society. By Peter Freiberg
In Minneapolis, an identified caller assailed two lesbians as
'homos' and warned they would be beaten up. Shortly
thereafter, their cars were vandalized and their home burglarized.
In New York, a gay photographer was stabbed to death with a kitchen
knife in his apartment by a man he met in Greenwich Village. Police
arrested a man who had a long record of pick-up related crimes
against gay men.
These three incidents, culled from the files of police and groups
dedicated to fighting homophobic violence, are among hundreds
of incidents reported last year in what some activists and social
scientists call an 'epidemic' of hate crimes against
gay people.
Such bias-motivated crimes against gays-little noticed even a
decade ago-are now drawing increasing attention from law enforcement
agencies, elected officials and civil-rights groups. In response,
psychologists are focusing on antigay hate crimes in their public
policy advocacy, research and clinical work.
FBI's latest report show that 11 percent of the 7,587 bias-motivated
crimes reported by law enforcement agencies in 1993 were against
gay people or people perceived to be gay.
But actual statistics are thought to be even higher (see sidebar).
Klanwatch, a Southern Poverty Law Center project that monitors
hate crimes, said its figures indicate that gays and lesbians
bore the brunt of hate violence in 1994 compared to their relative
numbers in society. A study by the New York City Gay and Lesbian
Anti-Violence Project said gay organizations in nine cities reported
2,031 antigay incidents in 1993-substantially more than the FBI's
figure-and 2,064 such incidents in 1994.
'Among the assault victims, [more than] 25 percent were gay
or lesbian,' Klanwatch said in a recent report. Of 18 bias-related
murders Klanwatch verified last year, 11 were motivated by antigay
bias.
Psychologist Anthony D'Augelli, PhD, a professor at Pennsylvania
State University, is one psychologist studying the extent of harassment
of young gay people and its impact on their mental health.
In a national study, D'Augelli surveyed 194 lesbian, gay male
and bisexual youths between ages 15 and 21. The research, he said,
provides evidence that victimization-verbal abuse, threats of
attack and assaults-has deleterious effects on mental health.
'The more people get put upon, the worse they do in terms
of mental health,' he said. But victimization, he said, did
not seem to be directly linked to suicide attempts.
Family support and self-esteem are two major variables determining
how much antigay hate crimes impact mental health, D'Augelli said.
Family support, defined as positive reactions to a youth's sexual
orientation, 'buffered the adolescent against the harmful
effects of victimization on mental health,' D'Augelli said.
But family support, he found, only seemed to help people ward
off the effects of 'low-level' victimization, such as
name-calling. If the victimization is moderate-such as property
destruction-or high-physical attacks-family support does not appear
to buffer the individual against the mental health problems engendered
by victimization, according to a paper D'Augelli wrote with psychologist
Scott Hershberger, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University. These
problems include tension, anxiety, depression, stress, fear for
safety and distrust of society, D'Augelli said. Similarly, self-esteem-which
included how comfortable a youth is with being a gay male or lesbian-also
appears to 'provide something of a buffer' in the face
of a verbal assault, D'Augelli says.
In two surveys at Penn State in 1987 and 1990, D'Augelli found
extensive verbal, property and physical victimization among 121
lesbian, gay male and bisexual undergraduates he studied. Eighty
percent had experienced verbal insults, one third had objects
thrown at them, 31 percent reported being chased or followed,
13 percent reported being spat upon and nearly one-fifth said
they had been physically assaulted-punched, hit or kicked-because
of their sexual orientation; 22 percent of the sample also reported
a sexual assault as a result of their sexual orientation. Most
harassers were fellow students.
Such violence, says D'Augelli, leads victims as well as more closeted
gays to conceal their sexual orientation from heterosexual counterparts
on campus.
'The costs associated with hiding and fear,' he says,
'are likely high, leading to emotional stresses, social difficulties
and academic problems.'
Gregory Herek, PhD, a research psychologist at the University
of California at Davis and nationally recognized authority on
antigay bias crimes, found similar evidence of the impact of hate
crimes. In his pilot study of 147 Sacramento-area gay people,
he found that about 29 percent had experienced a bias-related
crime against their person. Compared to other respondents who
had experienced no hate crimes against their person, these victims
showed significantly higher levels of depression, anxiety, anger
and symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. These
preliminary results, Herek says, will be tested in a much larger
study of 2,200 lesbians and gay men.
This 'crisis work,' Hanson says, is primarily advocacy-helping
victims report crimes to police, obtaining medical attention
and following the case through the courts. When therapy is requested,
it is usually short-term. But some victims do need long-term therapy.
Psychologist Linda Garnets, PhD, a Santa Monica clinician, says
the principal risk is that the survivor may feel 'there's
something wrong with me that caused me to be targeted as a gay
person,'' she said. The psychologist's main task is to help
the survivor reaffirm the positive value of a gay or lesbian identity,
and help them feel the anger rather than blame themselves.
Psychologist Glenda Russell, PhD, a Boulder, Colo., clinician,
says an antigay hate crime starts the victim not only questioning
'the safety of the world but the goodness of being gay. '
It feeds into what society tells us about lesbians and gays all
the time, which is that lesbians and gays are bad,' says
Russell.
That's why, Russell says, the psychologist needs to separate out
the external event from the person's internal feelings.
'You can't just tend to how it feels to the person to have
been bashed, and you can't just tend to the homophobia out there
that caused the bashing,' Russell said. 'The therapist
really has to work with both the internal and external aspects.'
That also applies to the causes of antigay violence, says Herek.
While research needs to be done on assailants' attitudes, he says,
'it's not always the case that you can cite individual homophobia
as the motivation in these attacks.'
Many factors, including the need for acceptance by friends and
society's attitudes towards gays, influence the mostly young male
perpetrators. 'It's very complicated,' says Herek, 'but
I do think?that it's society's homophobia, or heterosexism,
that fosters these attacks because they set up gay people as targets.'
So when a group of young men is hanging around looking for a target,
says Herek, gay people are more likely victims because gays are
'not valued greatly and [are] somewhat acceptable to attack'
because of society's antipathy towards them.
Peter Freiberg is a freelance writer in Hudson, N.Y.
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