Markle Middle School has reversed the victim and offender of sexual violence, making LGBTQ+ students, who are disproportionately victims of sexual violence, appear to be perpetrators.
You’re a student at Emory H. Markle Middle School. You’re trans, and your teachers aren’t allowed to use your correct name or pronouns. They’ll be punished if they address you with any identifier other than what you’ve been legally assigned. LGBTQ-inclusive books have been banned. A transgender student at a nearby school was killed in a hate crime earlier this year.
The gender-neutral bathroom is the only place in your school that brings you refuge from the transphobia swirling around you. Then, the school cuts a window into the bathroom wall, and everyone can see in.
In early October, a Pennsylvania school district approved and installed windows looking into select bathrooms at Markle Middle School. Those passing through the hallways had a direct view into the areas outside the stalls.
The construction was completed based on a recommendation proposed by the Independence Law Center (ILC), a law firm owned by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, a Christian organization that has been classified as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.
The school district’s board president stated the reasoning for the window was to “better monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.”
The kicker? The windows were only installed in Markle’s gender-inclusive bathrooms.
This year, the Sexual Violence Prevention Association (SVPA) developed SORVO, a framework outlining systemic oppression through reversing victim and offender. SORVO—Systemic Oppression, Reverse Victim and Offender—identifies how oppressive groups manipulate sexual violence, and accusations thereof, to justify their oppression.
ILC’s explanation for recommending bathroom supervision is transparently disingenuous, considering students using the single-gendered restrooms were not subjected to such scrutiny. This raises the question of why the school would choose to monitor solely gender-inclusive bathrooms.
When we expose SORVO, we drain it of its power.
This case follows recent uproars and fear-mongering surrounding trans people’s use of public restrooms. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups have long aimed to paint trans people as sexual predators and restrooms as private spaces in which cisgender people need protection from trans “voyeurs.”
This exemplifies two pillars of SORVO.
- An oppressive group falsifies a narrative that sexual violence is being perpetrated by an oppressed group.
- The oppressive group redefines sexual violence to encompass the oppressed group’s mere existence. In reality, a trans person simply existing is not a threat to anyone’s safety or privacy. Markle Middle School’s decision echoes the demonization of the transgender community to humiliate and “other” its LGBTQ+ students.
While trans people are being violently victimized four times as often as cis people, misconceptions that the LGBTQ+ community is a danger to society are still being upheld.
Markle Middle School has violated its LGBTQ+ students’ privacy and consent, all while perpetuating harmful implications that LGBTQ+ people are “inherently” sexually violent. This is SORVO. They have reversed the victim and offender of sexual violence, making LGBTQ+ students, who are disproportionately victims of sexual violence, appear to be perpetrators. They’ve then used this reverse-victim-and-offender narrative to justify their oppressive decision to install windows into the gender-neutral bathroom.
Positioning students using the gender-neutral bathrooms to be observed like zoo animals is an intimidation tactic that discourages trans and nonbinary students from accessing the facilities they have the right to use.
My own middle school’s bathrooms had no entrance doors, and the sinks and mirrors were entirely open to the busy hallways. Even though the stalls were tucked behind a wall, many students felt uncomfortable with the openness of a space that should have been private. Though my school implemented this layout in all multi-stall bathrooms with the goal of monitoring student conduct, such exposure is still designed to maintain control and is bound to breed distress.
What makes Markle Middle School’s actions especially problematic is their targeted weaponization of this forced vulnerability. Surveillance aimed toward a specific marginalized group is a form of oppression enacted through an unbalanced power dynamic. Positioning students using the gender-neutral bathrooms to be observed like zoo animals is an intimidation tactic that discourages trans and nonbinary students from accessing the facilities they have the right to use.
It’s necessary to recognize that this violation isn’t an isolated incident. Anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination is running rampant in schools across the country, and SORVO is being employed to legitimize the oppression of trans youth. SORVO is an incredibly powerful tool for oppressive groups, as it’s used to manipulate the general public into believing that certain acts of oppression are justified.
The agenda of the upcoming presidential administration will only exacerbate injustices like these, but the SORVO framework enables the recognition and prevention of future systemic abuse. By defining SORVO, we empower people to identify it and counteract it.
The SVPA implores educators, activists, journalists, community leaders and everyday people to join forces, learn the framework, and call it out in real-time. When we expose SORVO, we drain it of its power.
