Andrew Lim told a group of about 30 people the LGBTQ+ community is not safe from rape culture.
“The lack of conversation around LGBTQ+ survivors makes it difficult for people to come forward,” the 21-year-old said.
Lim was one of four speakers at the event, “Rape Culture in LGBTQ+ Communities,” hosted by UF Sexual Trauma/Interpersonal Violence Education and student organization Pride Awareness Month on Tuesday afternoon at the Matthews Suite of the Reitz Union.
Mark Tracz, a STRIVE lead peer educator, said the two organizations collaborated to put on the panel because rape culture is not often discussed in the community due to a lack of guidance. The event was STRIVE’s first general body meeting co-programmed with Pride Awareness Month.
Tracz, 24, said the event aimed to dispel myths and educate students on interpreting unhealthy and healthy behaviors in the minority community. The talk was broken up into different aspects of how the media portrays non-straight relationships.
“We’re relating it back to what UF students are going to be most likely exposed to. So current movies, what it is like going out to clubs and having that social life,” the second-year UF College of Education graduate student said.
Lim, a UF psychology sophomore, said the idea of a gay club is seen as a safe place for LGBTQ+ people.
But the presence of drugs and alcohol in these environments is an increasing factor in sexual assaults, said Lim, the co-executive director of Pride Awareness Month and the peer educator of STRIVE.
The panel also spoke about what Tracz called, “a media approach.” Lim guided the discussion about scenes from the films “Blue Is The Warmest Colour,” which is a French film about two female lovers, and “Call Me by Your Name,” which is about two male lovers.
Some of the scenes in the films, Lim said, depict large age gaps in relationships and underage drinking, which can lead to problems in relationships.
Students then broke into small groups of three or four to discuss questions about the movie scenes before Julia Catuogno discussed problematic trends like teacher-student romantic relationships, portrayed in media.
Catuogno, a UF psychology sophomore, grew up seeing these illegal relationships in the media and thought they were attractive because it was normalized. The 21-year-old acknowledged this was another factor of rape culture in the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s not talked about and needs to be talked about,” Catuogno said.
