Family Violence Week 13

Help Seeking Behaviors

-Complications: Awareness of IPV in LGBT relationships remains limited. Members may assume IPV does not happen in LGBT relationships. Seeking help often involves disclosing sexual orientation or gender identity.

Prevalence Rates of IPV for Bisexual Men

-Like bisexual women, bisexual men's experience of IPV are often subsumed into data on straight and gay men. Issues may be even more pronounced for bisexual men. -IPV rates among bisexual and straight men are similar. 37.3% of bisexual men compared to 29% of straight men. -Physical violence: Estimates are widely inconsistent. -Sexual violence: No large studies to date that have produced reliable estimates of sexual violence rates among bisexual men. -Psychological aggression: Common forms include being told by a partner that they are a loser, failure, or not good enough. -Sex of perpetrator: Most research has found females to be the aggressor. In a study of siblings, 56.3% of bisexual males who experienced physical assault were assaulted by a male partner while 68.8% were assaulted by a female partner.

Public Resources

-Many members of the LGBT community may feel that police are less likely to help them. -Pattavina and colleagues illustrate only minor differences in police response rates between domestic violence calls among same-sex and opposite-sex couples. However, of the survivors who reported incidences of IPV to the police in 2013, the NCAVP found that only 35.4% of those incidences were classified as IPV. Police were also more likely to arrest the survivor as the perpetrator. -Most LGBT individuals do not feel comfortable accessing help agencies. Mainly created for straight women.

Prevalence Rates of IPV for Bisexual Women

-Much less research exists in this area compared to gay men and lesbians. One reason may be the issue of how researchers define LGBT communities. Of the research that does exists, it highlights the increased risk of violence for bisexuals. -Goldberg and Myers found bisexual women are 3x more likely to experience IPV than straight women. -Walters and colleagues report that bisexual women experienced higher prevalence rates of rape, physical violence, and stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes when compared to lesbians and straight women. -Sex of perpetrator: Bisexual women are overwhelmingly victimized by males.

Personal Resources

-Personal and informal help resources are often the first and only places LGBT individuals turn to for assistance. Friends are the most commonly sought source for lesbians and gay men. -Also regularly reach out to counselors, although therapists may be less helpful due to a lack of understanding of issues involved in LGBT relationships and IPV. -Reluctant to confront a female perpetrator and may suggest couples counseling to lesbian couples.

Unique Forms of Violence

-Psychological violence: The threat of having their sexual orientations, gender identities, or HIV status exposed to friends and family members. Perpetrators may question victim's "true" sexual orientation or pressuring them to sexually "prove" their sexual orientation. -Isolation: May be more common and have a greater impact on LGBT individuals -First LGBT relationship: Can increase the risk of experiencing IPV. Many individuals enter this arena without exposure to healthy role models of LGBT relationships. Individuals may also be new to the LGBT community, reducing connections.

Prevalence Rates of IPV in Transgender Men and Women

-Research into this areas has largely remained absent. -Physical violence: Massachusetts Department of Public Health found 34.6% of transgender individuals have been threatened with physical violence by a partner within their lifetimes compared with 13.6% of individuals who did not identify has transgender. -Sexual violence: Xavier et al. found that 35% of respondents reported experiencing at least one form of forced sex involving someone in the household while 14% of respondents reported the perpetrator was a former spouse or partner and 12% that their current spouse or partner was the perpetrator.

Prevalence of IPV for Gay Men

-Research suggests that gay men often experience equal or higher rates of IPV than straight men and women. Estimates range from 15.4 and 51% of gay men have experience IPV in their lifetime. Are 2.5X more likely to experience IPV. Majority of perpetrators were male. -Physical violence: In the most recent national study, over 25.2% of gay men reported experiencing physical intimate partner violence in their lifetime. -Sexual violence: Research shows a particularly large range of prevalence rates for gay men experiencing sexual violence in the context of an intimate relationship. Merrill and Wolfe found 73% of gay men experienced at least one form of sexual violence while a community study found only 7.3% of participants had experienced sexual violence by a male partner. -Psychological aggression: Most common types included being told they were a loser or failure, a partner acting very aggressively, or being called names. Merrill and Wolfe's study indicated that gay men experienced a much higher rate of psychological abuse, with 85% experiencing some form of emotional abuse.

Prevalence of IPV for Lesbians

-Until recently, the majority of research on LGBT IPV focused on lesbians. -More recent studies have suggested that lesbians experience more IPV than straight women but statistics are not significant. -Physical violence: Due to methodological issues, findings vastly vary. -Sexual violence: Little research examines the sexual violence victimization of lesbians in the context of an intimate relationship. Such research has not found consistent results. -Psychological aggression: More research has focused on this. Emotional abuse is the most common type of IPV in lesbian relationships.

Defining LGBT IPV

-Who qualifies as LGBT? Definitions used by researchers differ greatly. Can impact both individuals included in the studies and IPV prevalence rates. -In 2011, the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services task the National Center For Health Statistics to develop a sexual orientation question to be included in national surveys. -Inconsistency in how IPV is defined. Researchers may use varying definitions.