“Woman Raped After Leaving Bar,” the April announcement declared, following an alleged incident outside a lesbian-frequented San Francisco dance club known for its mixed LGBT crowd. A visitor to the city reported that after feeling sick and trying to hail a cab, three men accosted her, took her to an unknown location and sexually assaulted her for several hours, all the while using antilesbian slurs.

The public alert was issued by a local agency, Community United Against Violence (CUAV), a nonprofit organization that tracks hate crimes and domestic abuse within queer communities. But the alleged rape was downplayed by the media, including the gay press, because reporters were suspicious of the victim’s account.

According to police, the victim was unable to pay a hotel bill, and officers were called in to address the situation. When questioned, the victim incoherently described being assaulted — and apparently robbed — the previous night, but couldn’t remember most of the details.

To some, this story sounded like an on-the-spot excuse for getting out of a sticky situation. But to groups like CUAV and fellow member organizations that make up the LGBT-specific National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), the victim’s story was all too typical of an underreported crime within LGBT circles: assault and/or robbery as a result of involuntary drugging.

Whether dropped into a drink or disguised as a recreational substance, the use of so-called “date-rape drugs” in gay bars is on the rise, according to Avy Skolnik, direct services coordinator of the Colorado Anti-Violence Program. Queer sexual assaults as a result of involuntary drugging experienced a statistical climb in the Denver area at the beginning of 2003, prompting his agency to draft an article for the local gay newspaper.

“We have seen a recent spike in the number of calls we receive from people reporting a sexual assault of which they have no recollection,” stated his piece, “Date Rape Drugs: Not Just a Straight Thing,” which ran in the newspaper Out Front Colorado. “Victims wake up usually feeling sore and remembering some events of the night before, but knowing that at some point, they blacked out. This is usually puzzling because the victim doesn’t recall drinking enough to result in a blackout.”

A date-rape drug can actually be any substance that induces unconsciousness, although the drugs most often used for malicious purposes include GHB, Ketamine, and Rohypnol.

Such drugs are dangerous for several reasons, according to DanceSafe, a national project dedicated to reducing harm within nightclub environments: They are often colorless and odorless, making them easy to disguise in drinks and as part of other drugs; they take effect quickly, causing a variety of physical symptoms, including blackouts and memory loss; they impair judgment, and may even make users more sexually aroused; and they can exit the body within a matter of days, leaving no evidence that such a drugging ever occurred. In short, they are a sexual predator’s dream.

“People may seem more attractive or interesting while under the influence of a drug. Taking drugs may also lead to a loss of inhibitions. You may act more confident than usual and find yourself in situations that wouldn’t normally arise,” according to a DanceSafe statement geared toward recreational users of the same substances.

These drugs also can be life-threatening, particularly when mixed with alcohol, and can cause extremely low blood pressure and heart rate, temporary coma, or death. A person who succumbs to the intended effects of a date-rape drug is already in danger, as DanceSafe notes that unconsciousness is often the result of an overdose.

Date-rape drugs have received widespread mainstream attention, with coverage that conjures up an image of a straight man forcing his female companion to comply with his sexual demands. Yet LGBT advocates caution that such drugs are also the weapons of hate, and they make their ensuing attacks difficult to report, track and classify, particularly within the queer community.

“It’s already hard enough for a victim to prove in the legal system that a sexual assault occurred,” says Tina D’Elia, hate violence survivor advocate at CUAV. “If that victim is queer, most likely s/he also has a difficult time receiving adequate medical, police and legal help. And if there was a drugging involved, you’re likely dealing with no witnesses, very little recollection of the event and a good chance that the drug is already gone from the victim’s system. These very specific types of crimes are extremely difficult to document and successfully prosecute.”

AN ACCURATE COUNT
There is currently no solid data on queer sexual assaults as a result of drugging. Only within the last several months have the member agencies of NCAVP added a drugging category to their crisis intake forms, a move that reflects how such crimes are now on the LGBT community’s radar.

Making matters more difficult is how — and where — such crimes get reported. Most victims who report drugging-related sexual assaults to LGBT-specific agencies are gay men and transgendered women. But such agencies caution that a lack of information on lesbian and female-born queer victims does not mean such populations aren’t being targeted.

LGBT organizations may already be at a disadvantage when it comes to identifying female victims, because many women have rape-crisis centers available to them that don’t necessarily document their victims’ sexual orientation. Advocates and counselors say that the mainstream system tends to treat assaults upon lesbians or bisexual women raped by men similarly to assaults upon straight women who are raped by men.

More complex is the nature of such reporting. LGBT victims may not know how to classify the crime committed against them, often because of the fuzzy line between a “date” and a “stranger,” particularly in a culture centered around the bar scene. If the perpetrator was a bar pickup, date, or familiar face within an already small community, a victim may view the incident as partner violence, and advocates say victims are very reluctant to report sexual assault within the context of dating, particularly if it requires disclosing their sexual orientation to authorities.

But sexual assault can take many forms, note LGBT advocates, and they can often occupy more than one criminal category.

“There’s not a clear line between date rape and stranger assault,” says D’Elia, who points out that statistically, 60–80 percent of sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows. “Sexual assault is an interesting thing. It could be a hate crime, or it could be the start of an abusive relationship.”

Just because the assailant was a date, say advocates, doesn’t mean there weren’t ill intentions all along. And such intentions coupled with any type of bias could classify the assault as a hate crime.

“One of the things we’ve been trying to push the public to acknowledge is that it’s almost impossible that a person’s sexual orientation does not become an issue during a rape,” says Rachel Baum, associate director of the New York-based NCAVP. “When queers are targeted for sexual violence, it is often to ‘teach them a lesson,’ and assailants are targeting the one thing that is the object of their hatred: the victim’s genitalia or sexuality.”

Traditionally, notes NCAVP’s Skolnik, any rape against a biological woman by a biological man is treated by his agency as a hate crime, considering the historical power imbalance and specific gender and sex factors that go into targeting the victim. A female victim’s sexual orientation may then be looked at as an additional reason for the attack.

But LGBT hatred isn’t limited to heterosexual male suspects in cases of assault, he says, which is often overlooked. Law enforcement dealing with a queer-on-queer assault may see both parties as “gay,” forgetting the hatred that can exist within the queer community toward racial minorities, women and transgenders.

“Just because both the perpetrator and victim are queer,” says Skolnik, “doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hate crime.”

Further complicating the documentation of drugging crimes, says Skolnik, is that victims who can’t remember the event have very little recourse within the system.

“When a victim has no recollection of the assault, even when there’s been physical evidence such as bruises and/or damaged clothing, if they didn’t get tested in time for one of these drugs, then police won’t even take a report,” says Skolnik. “It’s a big problem.”

D’Elia, like many LGBT advocates, is frustrated by the lack of funding and resources dedicated to tracking queer violence. And while she believes that NCAVP’s new intake forms will help identify trends in crimes accompanied by drugging, her gut feeling is that “there’s a gap” when it comes to tracking queer female victims of such crimes.

“There are so many reasons why we may not be getting the full picture around these victims of crimes involving drugging,” says D’Elia. “There is already shame around reporting sexual assaults. Sometimes the shame and fear can increase if the victim also has to report something like her sexuality, voluntary drug use or underage drinking. And if the perpetrator was a partner or acquaintance, there’s a taboo around acknowledging that kind of violence within the lesbian community.”

ASSESSING THE RISK
Although advocates believe most drugging-related crimes are accompanied by an attempted or successful rape and/or robbery, sometimes the perpetrator’s assault is limited simply to spiking a victim’s drink.

Jamie Johnston, who lives in New York City, was vacationing in a nearby resort town last May when she and a group of friends decided to attend a dance club known for its gay circuit parties. The environment was “electric, trancelike and very sweaty,” says Johnston, who adds that several times during the evening she was offered drugs by people she had just met. She stuck to her vodka-cranberry and a few cigarettes outside the bar’s main entrance.

Being in a queer space felt safe to Johnston, but perhaps it shouldn’t have: After leaving and returning to her drink several times, she began to feel nauseated and dizzy. Her next memories consist of drifting in and out of consciousness in her hotel room while her friends watched over her. Only upon her return home did she hear that the same nightclub was the scene of a GHB overdose by a man who, friends said, never touched drugs.

“Suddenly that night kind of made sense to me,” says Johnston, who believes she was the victim of a forced party atmosphere rather than a possible target for assault. “People were pretty into making sure that everyone was getting high.”

Johnston makes no assumptions about who may have drugged her drink, as the crowd was mixed and she couldn’t always tell who was a regular and who was a tourist. “Either way, I made the mistake of believing that gays wouldn’t hurt each other, or that outsiders wouldn’t dare mess with gay space,” she says. “Well, somebody did.”

Johnston’s story comes as no surprise to Allison Burgos, a club producer and promoter in Miami known for her popular gatherings, such as Girls in Wonderland. Burgos has taken to warning all her patrons to watch their drinks ever since a male friend strolled over to a neighborhood gay bar for a leisurely Sunday afternoon cocktail. “Somebody put something in his drink, and he had a negative reaction to it,” Burgos explains. “They found him unconscious in his living room. That was two years ago, and he still hasn’t woken up [from his coma].”

Although Burgos sees less drug use within the lesbian community, she does not see dyke-on-dyke drugging as an impossibility.

“I’m always very careful not to leave my drink unattended, and that’s in any club — gay, straight or lesbian. I don’t drink or use drugs, but I’ve had people who really wanted me to, and have almost tried to force me,” she says. “Sometimes, drugging is not necessarily a means to an end. Sometimes the motivation may be just that someone has a sick sense of humor.”

The false sense of security of being in LGBT space can be just the environment a potential attacker may be banking on, says D’Elia, who two years ago actually made such an announcement while emceeing the San Francisco Dyke March.

“We basically announced that everyone should be watching their drinks, that the playful and uninhibited atmosphere could put people at risk,” she says.

Avoiding danger includes keeping drinks close by — even water. Other rules, according to Skolnik, include not accepting unopened drinks from others (sealed cans and bottles are OK); always having a trusted friend nearby; and avoiding punch bowls at parties.

If an assault and/or drugging does occur, says Skolnik, seek medical attention and ask to be tested for Rohypnol, GHB and Ketamine. And remember that consenting to sex is an active response — or should be, at least.

“One cannot consent to sex when one is in fear, intoxicated or under the influence of the above-mentioned drugs,” he says.

By no means is any LBGT agency suggesting that queers are at greater risk for drugging-related assaults. But Baum cautions that continuing to view drugging, date rape and
sexual assault as heterosexual phenomena can be dangerous.

“It’s not less of an issue because we’re queer,” says Baum. “At times, we may be at an even greater risk of sexual assault because we are targeted for our sexual orientation or gender identity. We are certainly not at a lower risk than heterosexuals.”

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