I'm Afraid to Leave My Apartment

Today I was threatened.

I was told I "better not show up at any synagogues I had been going to." And on shabbat, no less! I was told I "better watch my back." I was told the whole community is against me, specifically the butch lesbian community, the Jewish community, and the disabled community. I was insulted and called a wack job.

I called the cops and reported it. The perp was a lesbian.

This is not the first time it's happened. Another lesbian perp called me an asshole and said she'd "kick my ass" a few weeks ago. I reported her too.

When I do go out socially, I'm sometimes met with a reaction that's somewhere between polite freeze and open hostility. Sometimes a woman might refuse to tell me her name, especially if she's just been publicly rude or insulting to me. Since the bullying started, I haven't been making many new friends.

I rarely go out, and when I do, I don't go out alone.

Some nice women who have been friendly to me have been affected, too. Two moderators of lesbian Yahoogroups have received slanderous email about me. Additionally, a moderator of an entirely different Yahoogroup for lesbians has written and posted slanderous email to about a thousand women on that list. No doubt others have received similar email, or have heard whispers, or in some way have been affected by this defamation of character.

It's all gone way too far and I really wish it would end.

The way to end it is to speak out against it. Another important step involves getting the right information.

Some of us apparently don't know what bullying is. But we can learn to recognize psychological aggression, emotional cruelty and other forms of bullying and abuse. It's not the same thing as getting upset, losing your temper, standing up for yourself, or telling someone you're really angry at them. It's not repeatedly asking for the same piece of information because you lost or forgot or misunderstood it. And it's wrong to call someone a bully for doing any of these normal things. Which leads to the next point.

If you don't know what abuse is, you prolly don't know who the victim is. Did you know that in lesbian relationships it's not uncommon for the bully to pose as the victim? Think about it. A bully incites others against the target, and wants to feel supported doing it. So a bully creates confusion and may even count on it. An enabler doesn't want accurate information either.

A victim may try to run away or leave, but have difficulty doing so. On the other hand, some victims may leave a relationship or a work position very suddenly. They may call police for protection, or ask to stay with friends, or even leave the area. A victim is badly frightened and likely has psychiatric injury (not illness) called PTSD, as a result of the bullying, and this can impact decision-making.

A victim is likely to be a newcomer, and socially isolated, and different from the rest of the community in some way. A victim is often very trusting, quite nice, and truly vulnerable; bullies pick up on this. If a victim is bullied at work, she likely has ideas, is competent, innovative, well-liked, independent, and is viewed by the bully as a threat.

A bully often has some position of power she is abusing in order to harm someone. In the case of lesbian relationships, the abuser is not necessarily physically dominant, and may not even be vocally loud. Instead she dominates in other areas of control. She may be a boss, or have credentials or titles, or have money, or have a higher IQ, or she may be more verbal, or she may just have many more friends or social networks. Obviously these traits aren't signs of abuse, they are simply signs of dominance.

Often lesbian relationships are featured by mixed dominance, where neither partner is clearly dominant, or where dominance shifts over time, or where both partners lightly vie for dominance. These situations, should they ever become abusive, can lead to devastating cruelty, as the abuser amps up her efforts to surpass her perception of the victim's supposed dominance, in order to hurt or gain control over the victim.

A bully is not merely having a bad day, nor is she simply angry over a perceived slight by the target. Instead, a bully or abuser is likely to resort to psychological aggression and other cruelties when she is held accountable for her actions. Therefore, bullying can be seen as an expression of retaliation for being confronted over the bully's own inadequacies or behaviors, or when being confronted with the reality of independence and autonomy of others. Fundamentally, bullying is about power and control.

In communities and cultures where bullying flourishes, it flourishes because it's tolerated and enabled. It seems counter-intuitive, but when it comes to bullying, the response of third parties is a huge predictor of outcome. It is not simply the response of the victim or the actions of the bully that determines outcome. In short, she very likely wouldn't be doing it if you, dear reader, told her in no uncertain terms she needs to stop it right now, and that you don't support her actions.

We can and should hold our friends and acquaintances accountable for their actions, as well as their inaction. Passive aggression is aggression. It's psychological aggression. Deliberately withholding needed support or needed resources is a form of psychological aggression. Let's all hope that when it happens, it's based on ignorance rather than prejudice. Ignorance is easier to fix.

We can begin to conquer our ignorance by taking responsibility for the impact of our silence, by recognizing we are interdependent, and by understanding some populations truly are more vulnerable and therefore need special protection. When we don't speak out against internet bullying, relational aggression, scapegoating, or socially-isolating someone, frankly, that enables it to continue. When we minimize relational aggression as a simple disagreement or conflict, that's enabling too. When we suggest we have some religious or spiritual excuse to engage in these behaviors, it's enabling, it's immoral, and it's a form of spiritual abuse.

When we suggest that victims toughen up or shut up or put up with it -- lest the victim disturb or inconvenience the routine of the enabler -- that is not only enabling, it is prolly more deeply destructive than the abuse in the first place. Yes ladies, the silent enabler can do more damage than the flagrant bully.

There's no excuse for silence. Nor is there an excuse for laziness. Or selfishness. We can't absolve ourselves of moral responsibility by throwing our hands in the air and muttering something about "here we go again" with the "lesbian drama." Nor can we tell a victim that we don't have time for her problems. Nor can we mis-use mental health concepts in order to form excuses like "healthy boundaries" prevented me from helping; or my own "journey away from co-dependency" made me think you'd "depend" on help, or I really need to focus on myself (all day, everyday, for weeks, or months?) so I can't help.

Actually, one can do all those things, but then let's not call it morally responsible behavior. Let's call it immaturity or ignorance. Because that's what it is. And let's try to overcome that together. As the AIDS crisis taught us, when a community gets sick, it's everyone's problem. And it's everyone's responsibility to find solutions. What's happening here is, and I really hate to say it, we have sickness in our community. And it's a real scourge. And it's everyone's problem and everyone's responsibility.

But take heart, change is at the door. The question is, do we have the courage to let her in?

We stopped the AIDS crisis; now let's stop the bullying crisis.

If you want to learn more about what you can do to end bullying and abuse, start by learning the facts. Then get involved by participating in constructive, healthy and educational discussion. And stay tuned to this blog.