Abstract
Sexual and relationship violence are two major public health issues that affect an alarming number of undergraduate students. As a result, many colleges and universities have protocols to serve victims of these forms of violence. Despite federal legislation stating that all students should have equitable experiences, current protocols and programs focus primarily on heterosexual students. College student victims of sexual and relationship violence who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender can face particular challenges, including disclosure of their sexual and gender orientations, and revictimization when seeking services. In recent years an increasing number of campuses have adopted bystander prevention strategies to address sexual and relationship violence. These strategies seek to engage community members in the prevention of sexual and relationship violence by training them to identify and safely intervene in situations where sexual or relationship violence is about to occur, is occurring, or has occurred. In this article we review published bystander prevention strategies that focus on preventing sexual and relationship violence in the campus community, and discuss how bystander strategies are addressing or can address relationship and sexual violence in the LGBT community.
Notes
* We use the term sexual violence to refer to a range of behaviors that are unwanted by the recipient, including, but not limited to, the following: derogatory or insulting remarks about physical appearance; persistent sexual advances that are undesired by the recipient; unwanted touching; and unwanted oral, anal, or vaginal penetration. These behaviors could be initiated by someone either known or unknown to the recipient, including someone in an existing relationship with the recipient. We use the term relationship violence to refer to a range of behaviors experienced in the context of any type of intimate relationship or friendship. These behaviors include use of physical force or threats of force against a partner, such as slapping, punching, throwing objects, threatening with weapons, or threatening any kind of physical harm. It can also include extreme emotional abuse such as intimidation, blaming, putting down, making fun of, and name calling.