Historical Context

• Joan of Arc, a saint who is speculated to be queer and nonbinary, was sentenced to death for crossdressing. While in prison, Joan was often raped by prison guards. If she was sexually assaulted due to her masculine behavior, this instance is one of the earliest records of engaging in sexual assault in order to "change" someone's sexuality or gender presentation.

• During the Holocaust, 15,000 gay men were sent to concentration camps under the pink triangle. The pink triangle equated them with rapists and pedophiles as the lowest ranking prisoners. According to gay Holocaust survivor Heinz Heger, Nazi men ordered the rape of homosexual prisoners by female sex slaves in order to “cure” their homosexuality.

• The AIDS crisis hit the LGBTQ+ community hard. However, Ronald Regan did not even say the word "AIDS" in public until 5,000 people had already died, showing the societal reluctance to publicly speak on LGBTQ+ issues.

• In today's society, the language we use oftentimes promotes harmful stereotypes. This fact is especially true in popular media, which reaches a large audience and sents damaging messages. One example of this comes from the song "Lost in the Fire" by The Weeknd. This song is based on a woman who is questioning her sexuality. The Weeknd calls her confusion "a phase" and promises to "f*** her straight", promoting hate language and justifying corrective rape.

These historical examples of homophobia and transphobia are a result of the systemic notion that straight and cisgender are the societal norms in terms of gender and sexuality. Because of these norms, which have been reinforced by hundreds of years of LGBTQ+ discrimination, it is hard for LGBTQ+ survivors to get access to adequate health programs and police assistance. In addition, many sexual assault survivors feel that they do not deserve to be helped, and that their assault is their "punishment" for being LGBTQ+. This phenomenon, called internalized homophobia or transphobia, occurs when LGBTQ+ people take the harmful messages society sends them to heart, causing them to deeply hate themselves for their identity and repress their true feelings. Many LGBTQ+ people do not seek out additional help because of these internalized emotions. Because the media refuses to cover LGBTQ+ issues publicly, many people are not even aware of this issue and are doing little to fight it.