or heterosexism, and the “normalization” of heterosexuality, which scholars often refer to as heteronormativity. Early theorization assumed the heterosexuality of victims and perpetrators without question; subsequently, diverse gender identities were also overlooked. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars began challenging these approaches and highlighted their inapplicability to the existence of same-gender intimate partner violence.21 Since then, a multitude of studies have indicated that intimate partner violence affects the lesbian, gay, and bisexual population at rates similar to those of heterosexual women, although more accurate and recent findings have pointed to higher prevalence among same-gender relationships.22
Over decades of research on same-gender intimate partner violence, several key themes have emerged. It is clear that regardless of gender, intimate partner violence exists across relationships and manifests similar dynamics of power and control. Physical, sexual, emotional, financial, and psychological abuses are well documented in patterns that are similar in both opposite-gender and same-gender intimate partner violence. However, important distinctions arise in regard to prevalence rates, dynamics of abuse, myths, and help seeking, among others. Gay and bisexual men typically report higher rates of psychological intimate partner violence when compared to heterosexual men, while gay men also report slightly lower rates of physical violence, rape, and stalking when compared to both bisexual and heterosexual men.23 Somewhat surprising to some, lesbian and bisexual women report higher lifetime rates of rape and psychological, physical, and stalking intimate partner violence when compared to heterosexual women. Victims of same-gender intimate partner violence also report different patterns of abuses than do their opposite-gender counterparts.
Among the distinctions are the role of homophobia and heterosexism as both tactic and context of abuse. While I elaborate more on this in the following chapter, victims of same-gender intimate partner violence report that abusers use coercive tactics based on sexual identity such as threatening to “out” them to friends, family, or work colleagues and manipulating beliefs in homophobic myths. In LGBTQ Intimate Partner Violence: Lessons for Policy, Practice, and Research, the only book to systemically review thirty-five years of existing research on LGBTQ intimate partner violence, sociologist Adam Messinger identified top myths, which in reductive shorthand can be categorized as the beliefs that LGBTQ intimate partner violence is rare and less severe (than heterosexual intimate partner violence), that abusers are masculine, that it is the same as all other intimate partner violence, and that it should not be discussed. The persistence of these myths often makes it more difficult for victims of same-gender intimate partner violence to recognize abuse or to identify as a victim. Additionally, widespread belief in these myths allows abusers to undermine the experiences of violence and entrap victims. For victims of same-gender intimate partner violence who do leave abusive relationships, help-seeking structures are generally best tailored for the needs of cisgender heterosexual women. Survivors of same-gender intimate partner violence often report experiences of misgendering and homophobia by responding police officers and a lack of inclusive shelter space, counseling, and resources. In addition, even informal help avenues such as friends and family may be less available to same-gender abuse survivors due to previous rejection.
Despite the fact that the literature exploring same-gender intimate partner violence and the experiences of gay and lesbian victims has expanded, transgender victims remain largely absent from the research. Decades of research in same-gender intimate partner violence oftentimes lumped trans experiences with those of cisgender gays and lesbians, and little attention has been given to how genderism structures trans victimization and presents barriers to help seeking or to the dynamics of abuse. In one of the earliest trans-specific studies available, transgender intimate partner violence experts Courvant and Cook-Daniels cited preliminary analyses from the Gender, Violence, and Resource Access Survey of trans and intersex individuals that found a 50 percent rate of victimization by an intimate partner.24 In 2006, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence reported that of all their reporting agencies, too few had clientele who identified as transgender to garner any statistically relevant information. This difficulty in obtaining transgender samples has often led scholars to exclude trans responses in same-gender intimate partner violence studies or to use just “binary gender identity categories (i.e. only men or women),” which do not accurately represent the diversity of genders within the community.25
As a result of the lack of trans-inclusive studies, it is difficult to determine a prevalence rate of intimate partner violence for the trans community as a whole. Within recent NCAVP annual reports, transgender individuals were on average almost two times more likely to experience harassment, threats, and/or intimidation by an intimate partner.26 In a UCLA Williams Institute report that reviewed existing research on intimate partner and sexual violence within LGBTQ communities, Brown and Herman found lifetime prevalence rates between 31.3 percent and 50 percent.27
While feminist intimate partner violence research has critiqued patriarchy, more needs to be done to thoroughly examine patriarchy’s reinforcement of the system of two and only two genders and how this contextualizes experiences of abuse. Generally, feminist theorists have held that intimate partner violence is a gender asymmetrical occurrence, viewing men as overwhelmingly the perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Beyond the gendered pattern, feminists have typically described intimate partner violence as a phenomenon that exists directly as a result of a patriarchal power structure that fosters a hostile cultural climate against women and enables men to perpetrate violence against them as a means of controlling women in society.
From this cultural perspective, this violence was not “domestic violence” or “intimate partner violence,” but rather was conceptualized as “wife beating,” “wife abuse,” or “woman abuse.” Feminists’ efforts were primarily focused on highlighting the evident gendered pattern while shaping a political agenda that would ultimately change our systematic response to the needs of these women victims. In arguably one of the most cited pioneering works, sociologists Dobash and Dobash sought to examine the experiences of abused women in a battered women’s shelter through a feminist perspective.28 Commonalities in the women’s experiences led to the conclusion that batterers held rigid patriarchal family ideals. When these victims were perceived to be out of line by their abusers, the abusers would reassert their patriarchal authority in the relationship through violent means. The women expressed that their husbands had certain gender-specific expectations of them as wives and that their violence was a mechanism through which batterers regulated their lives.
While feminist perspectives were readily challenged by the more “gender-neutral” family violence scholars who sought to make oppositional arguments, feminist thoughts based on cultural power dynamics between genders shaped the early direction of inquiry and essentially all of the response systems (e.g., shelters, hotlines, etc.). As the subfield of domestic violence scholarship emerged, it framed the violence as a heterosexually cisgender phenomenon. The broader argument was that men committed the overwhelming amount of intimate partner violence and did so because of the larger patriarchal power structure that constructed women as property in marriage, along with a legal system that supported or tolerated this view and the gender socialization that fostered hostile beliefs against women in our society. While framing intimate partner violence through this perspective highlighted the gendered nature of the violence, it also limited the research to the context of heterosexual relationships with discussions of only ciswomen victims of cismen perpetrators.
Assumptions of intimate partner violence based on theoretical orientation paint the issue with a broad brush that can often prove problematic, particularly when applied to trans victims. The oversimplification of gender resulted in early work that assumed that gender was the primary form of oppression for all women, failing to consider the intersecting qualities of race, class, and sexual orientation. This undermined the experiences of women of color, lesbians, economically marginalized groups, and more.
Social theory has grown and developed with the addition of a wider scope of approaches to the scholarship. In particular, black feminist scholars, activists, and critical race theorists revolutionized various subfields by centering black women’s voices in social theorization.29 In particular,
