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On an episode of the O’Reilly Factor last week, the topic was the growing problem of “lesbian gangs.”

No, I’m serious.

O’Reilly opens with an actual news item: a man in New York City, Wayne Buckle, was stabbed by a group of women after he had come on to them and then yelled homophobic slurs at them. The real story, on The Advocate, says:

…[one of the women] told the Daily News that Buckle “called us [homophobic slur] and he said he was going to f— us all.” Said another: “He spit on us and threw a cigarette. This is a hate crime.”

(Another analysis, written by Imani Henry as a press release for FIERCE!, can be read here.)

O’Reilly then goes on to talk to “crime analyst” Rod Wheeler (more on Rod later) about two of these dangerous lesbian gangs in Tennessee (Gays Taking Over, or GTO) and Philadelphia (Dykes Taking Over, DTO).

Wheeler: Well, you know, there is this national underground network, if you will, Bill, of women that’s lesbians and also some men groups that’s actually recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in the communities all across the country…. [in] Washington, Maryland, and Virginia, [there are] over 150 of these crews or gangs…. Right here…in Capitol Heights, Maryland, last week, a young man was attacked at one of the Metro stations, beaten beyond who knows what, put in the hospital. And the police found out that it was a group of six women who identified themselves as being members of a lesbian gang that actually attacked this young man.

Actually, Rod, it was not a group of six women. If you’d read NBC’s or your own station’s story on the incident, you’d know that the fight was between rival gangs of mixed genders. Details, details.

O’Reilly: Now, when they recruit the kids, are they indoctrinating them into homosexuality?

Wheeler: Yes. As a matter of fact, some of the kids have actually reported that they were actually forced into, you know, performing sex acts….

O’Reilly: I never thought of this. It makes sense that, if you had lawless gay people, they would do this kind of thing.

Well, of course. I mean, if gay people are going to commit a crime, then of course they’re going to be sexually assaulting someone. I mean, that just makes sense.

Wheeler: Now, the other thing, too, that our viewers are going to find very, very interesting, is the fact that they actually carry — some of these groups carry pink pistols. They call themselves the packing — the pink pistol-packing group. And these are lesbians that actually carry pink pistols. That’s nine-millimeter Glocks. They use these. They commit crimes, and they cause a lot of hurt to a lot of people.

A-hahaha — what? Wait, for real? Pink pistols?

Actually, what I suspect Rod is referring to, here, is the actual organization called the Pink Pistols, a queer pro-gun organization. (Slogan: “Armed gays don’t get bashed.”) But they don’t actually carry pink guns. And they aren’t a gang.

But then, after checking out this “detective’s” website — Rod007.com, no joke — his, um, credibility as a crack investigator is a little dubious. Rod only claims to have served “several years” as a homicide investigator and fraud investigator. Not five or ten or twenty, but “several” years. One of his other claims to legitimacy as a crime expert is his experience working in “corporate security and safety management” at Boston Market (a McDonalds chain), which kinda sounds like “security guard.” And his “what people are saying” page is mostly made up of praise from other Fox reporters.

Okay. So how about real news reports on this stuff?

Unsurprisingly, there’s not a lot. NBC wrote a story that claims:

Girls at the Turner Middle School allege that the lesbian students are harassing them with gay remarks. The straight students say lesbians are bullying, groping and harassing them in gym and in the girl’s bathrooms.

Not bothering to detail what “gay remarks” might be, the reporter goes on to interview two girls who have been “attacked” by the lesbians:

“I told them, ‘No.’ And they kept bothering us. (They) kept coming to us asking us to become gay,” said Felicia Anderson, a straight student.

“Don’t nobody wanna be gay. Don’t nobody wanna be harassed. Don’t nobody wanna be scared to come to school,” said Kendra Branch, a student.

…but there’s not a single word allotted to a queer student at the school, let alone one of the lesbian bullies being accused in this article. Hmm.

In another news report from Eyewitness News (video here), the news reporter has plenty of scary rhetoric about “your children are not safe” and “these girls can buy sex toys on the internet and use them on your daughters” and even dramatic re-enactments of a girl being assaulted in a bathroom. And then, when they finally interview two women who actually claim to be in Gays Taking Over (both in prison for robbery), the women seem confused by the allegations that GTO members assault or rape other women — or even that it’s a gang.

Karen: Gays Taking Over is not a gang, at all. We don’t hurt anybody, we just stick together.

Newscaster: Anissa and Karen have been GTOs for more than ten years. They’re in prison now for robbery and identity theft. Both women strongly deny that GTO is a gang.

Karen: “Dyke” is a derogative word to me. “Bull dyke” is a derogative word to me. I am a lesbian. And they’d always be hollering, “you old bull dyke,” and I’d be like, “Do you know what those words mean?”

Later, both Anissa and Karen talk about more violent “new” GTO members as well — but it’s very unclear whether they’re talking about within their prison (which wouldn’t be all that surprising), or if they actually have knowledge of 13-year-old-girls forming GTO gangs in their middle schools (which strikes me as a little odd).

At the end of the report, another newscaster admits that they do not have any hard statistics, and that they had not actually turned up widespread violence in schools due to lesbian gangs, but that gang specialists say that victims they have spoken to claim they’ve been sexually assaulted — of course, she does not specifically say these are girls being sexually assaulted by lesbian gangs, or by lesbians, or even by other girls, for that matter. She argues that “those calling the gang unit are too embarassed or afraid to report GTO members.” Right.

So what can we draw from all this, beyond anti-queer bias in the mass media, which we already knew? Am I crazy for thinking that this seems like a case of typical schoolyard homophobia being taken to a new level — girls who are feeling “threatened” by the presence of lesbians in their schools and locker rooms, who are being forced to listen to “gay remarks,” fabricating stories of sexual assault? I could be wrong, of course, but I find it very difficult to believe that girl gangs (which I’m not denying — of course there are female bullies and gangs) are banding together based on their shared lesbianism, and get their kicks by sodomizing other girls in bathrooms. I think it’s much more likely that this is a case of out lesbians being considered dangerous because, as the newscaster in the previous clip said, “…[they] want everyone to know they’re here, and that your daughters will have to deal with them whether you like it or not.”

Watch the full O’Reilly video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgXVyeGh2A

And read the transcript here.

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