"Absolutely yes, there is a crisis."
That's how Yvonne Siferd, victim services director at Equality Michigan, summarized her response to a huge national survey on campus climates and sexual assault at 27 U.S. universities, including the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
Over 150,000 students at those 27 universities were surveyed — and while the national media focused on the finding that, nationally, 23 percent of undergraduate women reported being victims of sexual assault or sexual misconduct — the survey revealed a troubling new statistic: Those who identified as part of the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming communities were nearly twice as likely to report in the survey that they have been victims than their heterosexual counterparts. They were also less likely to file a complaint with an official agency regarding the incident.
Who the perpetrators of this sexual violence and misconduct were — whether they identified as members of the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming community or not, for instance — was unclear.
"I would say that overall, the LGBTQ students' experiences are reflective of the intense homo/bi/transphobia that runs rampant in our state," said Siferd in an email. "We are disproportionately targeted for violence and sexual violence because we don't fit into the gender roles society has deemed acceptable for us based on the sex we were assigned at birth. We often report incidents to local LGBTQ organizations, like Equality Michigan, but much more rarely report to police/law enforcement — similar to the high amount of survey responses compared to the low amount of reports on campus. This speaks to the larger issues of homo/bi/transphobia that we often experience when we do overcome hurdles to report — being traumatized because the person you report to stigmatizes you because of your sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression."
Michigan State University noted in its press release on the university specific survey results that it had more work to do reaching the LGBT and gender non-conforming communities. Jason Cody, a spokesman for the university, said already this year the university has expanded its mandatory video on sexual assault to include information on the community, as well as developed LGBTQ and gender non-conforming specific information as part of its sexual assault awareness and prevention campaign.
In the general data found since enrolling at MSU, 13.2 percent of the students responding to the survey said they experienced nonconsensual sexual contact (either penetration or sexual touching) involving physical force or incapacitation. Among female undergraduates, 24.8 percent experienced completed or attempted nonconsensual penetration or sexual touching involving physical force or incapacitation, while 11.7 percent were victims of completed or attempted nonconsensual penetration involving force or incapacitation.
For female survivors of nonconsensual penetration by physical force, 71.9 percent did not report the incident. The primary reason given by students was they did not consider the situation serious enough to report (60.7 percent). Other reasons included feeling embarrassed, ashamed or that it was too emotionally difficult (39.4 percent), or not thinking anything would be done about it (28.2 percent).
The University of Michigan specific data was similar.
"They're shocking," said Amy Hunter, coordinator of the ACLU of Michigan's Trans Advocacy Project, referring specifically to the national numbers related to LGBT and gender non-conforming students.
"The transgender and gender non-conforming community is already most at risk for violence," Hunter said, "It is now evident that even in spaces where we should be in the safest spaces, we're not safe."
Hunter called on MSU officials to implement broad educational outreach for the LGBT and gender non-conforming community about sexual violences, but also general education about the community to the larger university community.
State Sen. Curtis Hertel Jr., D-Meridian Township, said the findings — nationally and at MSU — "confirmed what we already knew about sexual assault: it's an epidemic."
He too called the numbers related to the LGBT and gender non-conforming communities "shocking," and said the reports revealed, "It's not just a heterosexual problem, it's an across the board problem."
Hertel announced last week introduction of legislation to amend Michigan's laws regarding sex education curriculum to include affirmative consent.
"I think the consent issue is lacking across the board," Hertel said. "It's a pretty simple message: Yes means yes."
Jesse Bernal, the vice president of the division of diversity and inclusion at Grand Valley State University, said the survey results "confirmed" that "we have a serious problem."
GVSU did not participate in the survey, but Bernal had reviewed some of the findings.
He said education on LGBTQ and gender conforming communities was part of addressing the issue. But he also said being deliberately inclusive of all campus communities in educational programming was important.
"We're taking a really complex response," he said. "We're not promoting strict gender conformity or heterosexual only ideas."
As director of Title IX — a federal law which governs how educational agencies respond to sexual violence on campus — Bernal said he is taking "an intersectional framework, not just a heteronormative one."
But when the topic of affirmative consent comes up — particularly around the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming communities — what initially appears "clear" can quickly become muddied.
For instance, he said, how does one account for nonverbal consent?
"Consent is complicated," he said. "Generally, we thought the 'yes means yes' made it a lot clearer. Then groups started telling us that they were encountering all kinds of complex dynamics around consent."
He continued.
"It's an interesting dynamic, sexual environment for the LGBTQ and gender non-conforming communities," he said. "We're just starting to understand that environment. We need to continually work on it."
The results of the national study, he said, showed that while academics and administrators are working hard to address issues specific to the communities involved, the reality is "this just raises the bar."
"This really raises the urgency on how quickly we need to understand and respond to these issues," he said.
