Confronting Sexual Harassment in School K-12

It's not acceptable for someone to grope you. There's not acceptable for someone to verbally abuse you. Going into certain classrooms, I knew at some point during the day every class I was going to be called gay or fag. Whatever makes you uncomfortable, I think, is what crosses the line. Definitely had me feel scared. I would even say terrified. Sexual harassment is unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature. It can be verbal. Verbal harassment includes sexual jokes and comments, rumors, or hurtful name calling. Sexual harassment can also be physical. Physical harassment includes unwanted touching, groping, pushing, or being physically intimidating in a sexual way. Sexual harassment can take place person to person, or it can take place online or through text messages. Over 80% of teenagers have experienced sexual harassment in school at least once. And in the vast majority of cases, the harassers have been other students. But most students don't recognize sexual harassment for what it is, and only very few know what to do about it when it happens. So that's the purpose of this program. To make it clear what sexual harassment is, how it is harmful, how to stop it if it happens to you, and where you can go for help. And while sexual harassment can take place anywhere and be committed by people who are older, we'll be focusing on harassment in schools, an instances where both the harassers and their targets are students. To start, we'll take a closer look at the different forms that harassment can take. They'd hug me and wrap their arms around me and then slowly wrap their arms around my back and then like, you know, kind of like grope, I felt like it was the wrong thing. I felt I felt hurt. Remember him coming up behind me and like sort of breathing on my neck and speaking in my ear and whispering and maybe putting his arms around me and I just remember feeling like, you know, excuse me. 'cause he's in my space and he was touching me and I wasn't comfortable with it. Most sexual harassment happens to girls, but it can happen to guys, too. I was only 17 at the time. Her name was Lisa. She used her position to basically take advantage of me. Touching, hugs, things like that. And it just really made me feel uncomfortable.