Exactly. Especially if the administration was bully-friendly, which they often are. My daughter was so bullied at her middle school that we ended up having to take her out and put her in online school because the administration didn’t give a shit. The one time we went so apoplectic that they were forced to act, they made the bullies apologize to her and her apologize to the bullies. Which, of course, made things worse.
One of my daughter’s best friends is still in that school and he is trans. Some girl was harassing him and being incredibly bigoted to him and he finally turned around and slapped her for it. Guess which one of them got suspended and which one wasn’t even finger-wagged at? Hint: it wasn’t the girl that got suspended.