Lesbian gang violence underreported and on the rise

Washington D.C., Jul 6, 2007 / 09:46 am

This story has since been discredited by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Click here to read the follow up report.

The incidence of lesbian gang violence in American neighborhoods and schools is on the rise.

Last week, Fox News' O'Reilly Factor reported that gangs, known as Dykes Taking Over (DTO) and Gays Taking Over (GTO), are forcing children into homosexuality. In addition to carrying weapons and violently attacking people, gang members sometimes rape female victims.

FOX News crime analyst Rod Wheeler said there are about 150 such gangs in the DC area, including Washington, Maryland, and Virginia.

Wheeler described a “national underground network” of lesbian and gay gangs that recruit children as young as 10 in schools across the country. He said some of these children reported being forced into performing sex acts with the gang members. 

In a report earlier this year, produced by Eyewitness News Everywhere, Deputy Beverly Cobb of the Shelby County (Memphis) Gang Unit said this type of gang violence was becoming more frequent and more violent.

GTO gang members "are forcing themselves on our young girls in all our schools," she reportedly said. 

Two GTO members, who were imprisoned for robbery, said the group was formed more than a decade ago as a support group for lesbians. However, they admitted that current GTO members are raping girls. The Eyewitness News report also noted that some GTO members are attacking other inmates in prison.

GTO gang violence is not new, but it has gone underreported in the mainstream media. In 2004, NBC10 in Philadelphia reported that DTO members were harassing students. Young female students told of being groped, harassed in school bathrooms and bullied into becoming lesbians.

REAL Women Canada has taken note of violence by and among homosexuals and, in 2004, issued a report stating that homosexual parenting would be harmful to children. 

The report notes "a higher rate of violence in lesbian and homosexual relationships than in married, heterosexual relationships."

A study, published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships.  "The researchers found that 90% of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31% reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse," says the REAL Women report.