By Ramona Roberts

Harassment sucks, in every form.
Like other visible queers I know, I've been the target of stares, glares, cruel jokes, name-calling and the odd attacking phone call. Others have been spit on, outed or beaten up.
Harassment can also be a lot more subtle. Like when friends snicker that someone they think is weird or ugly must be a transvestite. Or when profs allow other students to vent their homophobia in the classroom, on the grounds that "everyone's entitled to their opinion."
Whether it's as blatant as a shouted slur or a kick in the gut, or more subtly disguised as "academic freedom" or "just a joke," harassment hurts.
And it all counts.
It doesn't matter what type of harassment you experienced, or how long it lasted. If it hurt you, that's serious.

Everyone reacts to harassment differently. Some people feel scared, hurt or angry. Some people just laugh. Many do both.
You might not feel anything at the time, but then realize later, when the situation has passed, that what happened really bothered you.
There's not one right way to feel, or to respond. It's OK if you feel like you're over it five minutes later, and it's OK if it takes two years.
The most important thing, when you've been harassed, is for you to feel safer. Whether that means calling the police, going to a friend's house for safety and support, or going home to relax, you deserve to do what'll help you feel better.

If this disrupts your schedule, try to give yourself a break. It's not your fault that someone harassed you, and it's not your fault if you need time to deal with it.
There is queer support out there. You can call LBGTMUN, or NGALE's LBGT Support Line to talk to someone about what happened. These services are confidential.. If you need more than peer support, you could also talk to a counsellor.
You might also have the option to report harassment to the authorities -- if you choose to. (If you don't feel comfortable with reporting, you don't have to.)
If you decide you want to report something that happened to you, there are a few different ways to go about it, depending on your situation.

Some kinds of harassment are always against the law.
If someone beats you up or sexually molests you, threatens you, steals or destroys your stuff, or tries to get something from you by threatening to out you, you can report it to the police.
These are crimes everywhere in Canada, including the Memorial University (MUN) campus, regardless of the reason someone does it. And that's just a brief list. If you're not sure whether or not what happened to you counts as a crime, call the police and ask if you can report it.
Now, if you do report a crime to the police, the first thing they'll do is ask you lots of questions.
This can be stressful at the best of times, and especially if you've just been harassed. Their job is to find out the details of what happened, not to make you feel better. So you might want to make sure you have support from other sources, like a friend with you when you make your report, or a counselling appointment after.
If someone has been making you feel unsafe but hasn't done anything the police will act on, you can try keeping the harasser away from you by applying for a peace bond. This is a court order for the person to stay away from you, including contacting you by phone, mail or other means. If the harasser breaks the peace bond, then you can call the police.
A peace bond doesn't guarantee your safety -- the harasser can always decide to violate it. But it does tell the harasser that you're willing to involve the law if he/she/ze doesn't leave you alone.

More information on peace bonds

But what about the more subtle garbage people put in our space - the prejudiced comments and jokes, slurs and stares and snickers, casual statements that "people like us" don't deserve to be here?
When people cross the line without breaking the law, there are two other avenues to try.
First of all, if you've been harassed by another member of the Memorial University community, you may be able to respond through the university.
Like most universities, MUN has a policy to deal with harassment when it occurs. The following kinds of harassment are forbidden at MUN:

unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, unnecessary touching or patting, suggestive remarks or other verbal abuse, leering at a person's body, compromising invitations, physical assault and any other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature directed at an individual(s) by a person who knows or ought reasonably to know that such attention is unwanted.

So if you've been harassed at MUN in one of the ways on this list, then you can make a formal complaint through the university's Sexual Harassment Advisor, Sandra Chaytor.
The problem is, if your experience doesn't fit somewhere on this list, MUN doesn't have to take your complaint. Even though people cross the line in a lot of different ways -- from making homophobic jokes, to coming onto their students, to mocking people's disabilities -- MUN's definition includes only sexual harassment.
So unless a harasser's behaviour can be seen as sexual, it is not officially against the university's rules.
Still, Sandra Chaytor promises that this will soon change. Chaytor, whose job is to help people use the policy, says the next version will specifically include harassment based on sexual orientation.
This new policy has been in the drafting stage since 1996. No plans to prohibit harassment on the basis of race, gender identity, disability or any other minority status have been proposed.

In the meantime, Chaytor says she welcomes anyone who has a problem to visit her office, whether or not the policy formally covers your experience. She can help you draft a letter to the harasser, or plan a confrontation. She can also assign a "neutral intervenor" to mediate a meeting between you and the harasser.

More information on MUN's policy

If you can't make your complaint through MUN, and you can't report it to the police, try going right to the government. Their human rights regulations address more forms of harassment than MUN's narrow policy, and they apply on and off campus.
We now have both provincial and federal human rights codes which forbid anyone to refuse you service, harass you or willingly allow you to be harassed because of your race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, colour, ethnic origin, political opinion, social status or marital status.
We also have provincial and federal Human Rights Commissions in charge of making sure these codes are respected.

More information on making a human rights complaint

Because harassment sucks, in every form.
And whatever you decide to do about it, you deserve support.

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