“Will I get beaten up tonight for walking around on campus with a pink undershirt?” Associate Director of Student Programs and LGBTQ Community Resources Coordinator Bill McCoy asked as he grabbed his t-shirt for emphasis. As part of the “Gender Motivated Violence and Perspective” panel on Wednesday night, McCoy focused on how violence affects those who express gender in a non-traditional way, including transsexuals.
McCoy said he believes the victims of the recent hate crimes on campus were attacked not because they were gay, but because they dressed in a non-traditional way, since sexual orientation isn’t an obvious physical feature.
“[The crimes] are not innately homophobic,” McCoy said. “It’s a man walking alone, wearing tight clothing, often pink-type clothing … he’s not walking around with ‘I’m gay’ stamped on his forehead. He was expressing a gender in a way that most men on campus don’t adhere to. It’s ‘I don’t like the way you’re representing yourself as a man, so you’re less than a man.’”
Nancy Cantalupo, Assistant Dean of Clinical Programs at Georgetown University and the former director of the Women’s Center, spoke on the panel about how both international and domestic law do little to curb gender violence.
“At the international level, there’s very little going on with gender motivated violence,” she said. “How do you hold a state responsible for gender motivated violence in its society?”
Cantalupo pointed out that, although there are hate crime laws in the United States, gender is the least frequently protected category.
“The law is replete with examples of ignoring, condoning, even promoting gender motivated violence,” Cantalupo said.
The panel was part of Take Back the Night Week, an annual event organized by Take Back the Night, a student group that promotes awareness about sexual assault.
“We’re trying to raise awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence, and the existence of fear of being a woman in the city,” TBTN co-chair Flavia Menezes said.
Several of the events were co-sponsored by other organizations, including two by GU Pride. The partnership was partially a response to the hate crimes that have taken place this year.
“The issue of gender motivated violence has brought us closer together, but it’s a partnership that should have occurred sooner,” Menezes said.
