A Different Sort of Bystander Effect

Much of the bullying literature focuses on the notion of bystanders as those individuals who bear witness to bullying, and who should ultimately be encouraged to intervene or alert educators to the ongoing bullying. In many cases, the participants of this study appeared to be the bystanders who bore witness to the GSB experiences of other students. In addition to the quotes presented above that show the juxtapositions that students made in describing their experiences, a few other quotes can be presented to highlight how prevalent this idea of witnessing the targeting of others was. For example, Heather stated:

…there was this other kid in my elementary, like, we were in elementary and middle school together, and his was like pretty bad because they would just like make fun of him for being gay and like pick on him. Like, um, kind of exclude him and like, it was pretty awful.

Samantha explained:

…I had the least worst of it, like one time someone pelted a girl in the change room with wet paper towels and people were like ‘get out of here dyke bitch’ and ‘you’re just staring at all of us’, um, so I mean like relative to that by juxtaposition, it was not that bad.

Thus, as well as helping to shape an understanding of one’s own experiences, witnessing GSB against other students also seemed to serve as a warning of what might happen if the gender or sexual deviance of closeted participants were to be discovered, or if they did something to make themselves more of a target than they already were. Lauren’s explanation of their decision to come out best illustrates this idea:

I thought like, you know what, I don’t know anybody else in my entire school who identifies as lesbian, I know a few gay guys here and there but they were really picked on, I don’t know if I’ll get the same reaction or not, but I’m like, I’ve already experienced a lot of really negative comments from friends, it’s just not worth it.

When asked to elaborate on the experiences of ‘the gay guys who were really picked on’, Lauren recounted:

I remember vividly, in grade ten, I definitely knew, I knew that I liked girls at this point. Wasn’t sure if I was quite, lesbian or bi, but either way, I deliberately remember being on social media and seeing people write on this guy’s wall sometimes, being like ‘you’re a fag’, or like, you know what, negative, really negative things like that, or just people excluding him in general. He would go to school and be, he had things written all over his locker once, just like really ridiculous things you would see in like, High School Musical, like ridiculous, different…just ridiculous portrayals of what high school might be like for some people. I feel like, kind of like that. So, like, things that you don’t actually think would happen, but do end up happening. People would definitely talk about him, like about the weird gay guy

[…]

it was definitely a negative, a really negative experience for him, and I just feel really bad looking back at it, being like I look at that situation at the

time, nobody wanted to be in that guy’s shoes cause a lot of the guys were like, ‘this guy’s weird, he’s more feminine than us’, they were all

uncomfortable, somehow they thought like, he was questioning their masculinity by like, maybe being attracted to guys or what, but either way it was just a really negative social response.

Although the negative implications of this bystander positioning will be elaborated on in the next section, in highlighting such experiences it becomes apparent that the

experiences of others thus had an indirect impact on the participants. This resulted in the perpetuation of both fear and the self-monitoring of behaviour so individuals would not become targets themselves.

Currently, the effect of having to bear witness to such experiences may or may not be included in definitions of bullying, depending on the extent to which the direction of action is taken into consideration. If not bullying, such experiences could otherwise be classified as instances of harassment (see Meyer, 2014). Based on the Ministry’s definition, actions that create negative environments for other students are considered to be bullying, as long as those actions are also based on an imbalance of power (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2018b).

Regardless of the context and definitions used, given the frequent inclusion of such comparisons in interviews that were focused on students and their self-defined bullying experiences, it is important to consider that this indirect exposure to bullying appears to be considered bullying in and of itself by those who are forced to bear witness. Given that students reported experiencing negative effects from the targeting of others and also came to understand or evaluate their own bullying experiences in relation to those that others experienced, it appears as though the individuals also perceived themselves to be indirect targets of the GSB they witnessed. Indirect bullying in this sense has less to do with spreading rumours and social exclusion (Rivers & Smith, 1994), and more aptly describes a form of secondary targeting as a by-product of the initial instance of GSB. Thus, in reflecting on the experiences of GSB that were captured in the interviews, it is possible to see how the participants were targeted in a variety of ways, although mostly through non-physical manifestations of GSB. The verbal and exclusionary experiences

that were discussed by participants do fall under the current scope of bullying definitions commonly adopted by the academic community and the Ontario Ministry of Education, although the participants appeared to hold on to a typical notion of bullying that would involve physical forms. Furthermore, negative repercussions from witnessing the targeting of others emerged as a common theme that also reinforces the need to consider how widespread the negative effects of bullying are, and how even if not directly

targeted, bullying can contribute to a hostile school climate (Espelage et al., 2015). Participants explained being targeted based on their perceived differences, a finding that has been supported elsewhere in the literature (Plummer, 2001; Thornberg, 2015; Walton & Niblett, 2013). In targeting difference, such bullying behaviours that were described also served to reinforce notions of appropriate gendered behaviour and heterosexuality, and frequently involved the use of homophobic slurs as insults. Such verbal

reinforcement of heteronormativity was an early occurrence for participants, many of whom did not fully comprehend the meaning of such terms prior to hearing them in a negative context. The absence of positive references to gay and lesbian thus meant that the dominant interpretation of the terms for many of the students in the study was a negative one, and as discussed later in this chapter, one that largely went unchallenged by the heteronormative curriculum and classroom discussions the students were exposed to. Overall, this section has thus shown not only a need for schools to address instances of GSB, but also to address the heteronormative context that reaffirms notions of difference as deviant and as something that could be considered acceptable to police.