Justice Dept. Tracks Gay-on-Gay Crime

The recently released "Intimate Partner Violence" statistics from the Justice Department contain a new category: gay-on-gay crime.

According to newly released Justice Department statistics on crimes between people who are involved in a sexual relationship, 10 percent of cases dealing with male victims involved a male attacker. John Paulk, of Focus on the Family, a former homosexual, said such gay-on-gay violence has been going on for a long time.

"I know from my own relationships in homosexuality, there was lot of domestic violence," Paulk said. "We see a lot of gay relationships just riddled with turmoil."

According to the report, published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1993 and 1999 an average of 142,290 incidents of intimate partner violence each year occurred against males. Of that total, 10 percent — or 13,740 — were incidents in which homosexual males attacked other homosexual males.

As devastating as those numbers are, Bob Knight, of the Culture and Family Institute, said they are probably low.

"Politically speaking, homosexuals would have every reason to report a hate crime, but very little reason to report a domestic violence incident," Knight said. "So, the domestic violence statistics are probably under-reported and the hate crimes are probably over-reported.

But don't expect to hear gay activists attack domestic violence with the same fervor as hate crimes.

"Homosexuals have been the victim of 'hate crimes,' they say, at an incidence far less than these statistics (would appear to show)," Knight said. "(This report) shows that a homosexual man is far likelier to be a victim of domestic violence than he is a victim of a so-called hate crime."

He said that since homosexuals account for only 2 percent of the population, the study shows that homosexuals are five times as likely to be victims or perpetrators of domestic violence as other men.

Reports of LGBT Domestic Violence on the Rise
by Jon Garbo

The number of reported incidents of domestic violence among couples in 1999 rose 23 percent from 1998 figures, according to the fourth annual report on LGBT domestic violence by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), a network of US advocacy groups.

The NCAVP documented 3,120 incidents of LGBT domestic violence last year, based on statistics from San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Colorado, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.

"People in our community are less likely to think of the police as something that’s helpful."

"While significant for what it reveals about the broader incidence of domestic violence in the LGTB community, the rise in reported case numbers should not be interpreted to reflect an absolute increase in the incidence of such violence overall," according to the study. Enhancements in staffing, program capacity and improved outreach efforts may have contributed to the higher numbers, the study said.

Incidents were tallied based on calls NCAVP affiliate organizations received from people looking for services or support, explained Emily Pitt, MSW, domestic violence advocate at Boston’s Fenway Community Health, an NCAVP affiliate. The report did not examine police surveillance data because, said Pitt, "people in our community are less likely to think of the police as something that’s helpful, and are more likely to report domestic violence to someone who’s LGBT-sensitive."

The report found that incidents of domestic violence are roughly split between gay men and women. Race was divided less equally: 45 percent of the abused were Caucasian, 17 percent were Latin, 11 percent were African-American and 4 percent were Asian/ Pacific Island. Forty-four percent of the abused were between the ages of 30 to 44, 21 percent were 23 to 29, 12 percent were 45 to 64, 4 percent were 18 to 22 and 1 percent were under 18 or over 65.

The accuracy of the report may be difficult to gauge, however, because LGBT domestic violence often goes unreported. "We believe the actual number of cases is much higher than is reflected in this report," said Pitt. This may be especially true of transgenders, who made up only around three percent of report's total incidents. "The extraordinary low rates of reporting among transgender-identified victims may be attributable to the perceived or actual lack of appropriate resources to serve them," the study said.

There are a variety of reasons LGBT people may be reluctant to report domestic violence, said Pitt. These include "fear of being outed, fear of the police or the courts, lack of services… and/ or lack of understanding that domestic violence is not just about abuse between a man and a woman, but can include same- relationships," she added.

Updated: Wednesday, 8 November 2000

Another article confirming this problem, from gayhealth.com

Breaking The Silence: Sociologist Studies Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence

by R. Morgan Griffin

Although Professor Lori B. Girshick hasn’t yet concluded her study of woman-to-woman sexual abuse, what she has found so far confirms that this kind of abuse is real and that it needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, a lot of people are reluctant to admit there’s a problem. Many more are just not interested.

Girshick, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, has worked for about ten years in battered women’s organizations and has also run a support group specifically for abused lesbians. She began her study last May, after being confronted (while doing research) with a lack of information about woman-to-woman sexual abuse.

The Myth
The "myth that women are not violent," is persistent and contributes to a denial of woman-to-woman sexual violence, not only among the general population but also among lesbians, says Girshick. "We want to believe that our relationships are safe, that we have equality, and that we have ideal communities. But it’s not true."

Girshick mailed flyers across the country to thousands of rape crisis centers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered organizations, community centers, and magazines looking for participants. So far, she has had about 150 responses and over fifty completed surveys. For most of the women who did the questionnaire, Girshick followed up with a phone call.

The number one problem for women who have been abused by other women is homophobia, says Girshick. "For one, you can’t seek help because you’d have to come out. There aren’t the services to help these women, because the mainstream agencies don’t want to take on women abusing women, or because they’re ignorant of the problem," she says. To make matters even more difficult, the service providers can sometimes be homophobic, ignorant or misinformed, says Girshick.

The estimated incidence of domestic abuse in gay and lesbian relationships is one out of three, about the same number arrived at for abuse in heterosexual relationships. Although Girshick hoped to attract a wide range of participants from different racial and socioeconomic groups, and from the transgendered and transsexual communities, the respondents have been predominately white, middle-class and highly educated lesbians or bisexuals.

The number one problem for women who have been abused by other women is homophobia, says Girshick.

The women were assaulted by acquaintances, coworkers and partners, says Girshick. The abuse might have happened once or many times but the result was often the same, she says. "The word most commonly used to describe the feelings of these women after the experience is ‘devastated.’"

Women who are sexually abused frequently feel alone and helpless, and this feeling can be worse for women who have been hurt by other women, says Girshick. Lesbians often have a more difficult time than straight women do in realizing that they have been, or are being, abused, she says.

As Girshick has written, we live in a society where "sexual violence is defined only in terms of male penetration and intercourse," and as a result, women who have been abused by other women have trouble deciding what happened to them. "How we label what happened to us determines what we do next," Girshick says. "If I call this rape, I might call rape crisis. If I don’t call it rape, I’m not going to call rape crisis."

Indeed, many of Girshick’s participants did not call it rape or sexual assault, at least at the time of the incident. Some said that they "didn’t have words" for what had happened. Others said that it was just "rough foreplay" or the result of being in a "bad relationship." Girshick says a large number of her respondents, as children and adults, had also been sexually abused by men, and that the memories of these previous traumas often complicated their reaction to being assaulted by women.

But when asked about how they felt about their experience now, many more called it "rape" and almost all named it "sexual assault," a phrase that very few had used when describing how they initially felt about their experience. According to Girshick, many of these women read books about woman-to-woman sexual violence; they went into therapy; they volunteered at rape crisis centers.

Being able to name the sexual abuse is only part of the problem. Finding help and support is especially difficult for women who have been abused by other women, explains Girshick. While a battered women’s shelter can be a comforting and safe environment for abused heterosexual women, it often can’t give the same feeling of protection for women being abused by other women, explains Girshick. "There’s no formal sanction that we can go to. Our society doesn’t want to hold even straight males accountable for battering, so it’s much worse when you are accusing another woman."

For people who are part of a small lesbian community, the social implications of speaking out against their abuser can be terrifying. Girshick reports that some women did become ostracized when they told others. "I’ve heard stories of individuals who say ‘My friends turned against me and protected her.'"

Some lesbians and bisexual women are also concerned that acknowledging this kind of abuse could give the public at large the wrong impression of their relationships. "There’s political power against speaking out about this problem. Here we’re pushing to have marriage. We’re pushing to adopt. You don’t want to say we’re being battered. You don’t want to admit that your relationship -- which already seems ‘perverted’ to some -- can have these other problems too," Girshick says. "But I’d rather dispel the myth, actually work on this problem in our community and face it."

A few of the women that Girshick spoke with sought legal recourse, but most did not. Girshick plans to study the laws of the states in which these cases of abuse took place to see how many woman-to-woman sexual assaults have gone to court and whether, for instance, the sexual abuse laws were written in gender neutral language. Having such laws could make some difference, says Girshick. "It was legal in this country for husbands to rape their wives and now it is not. It took twenty years, but Laura X did that. She and others spoke out and challenged the laws and raised people’s awareness."

More Work Ahead
Girshick has been encouraged by the responses she has received from the study participants. "The women who have taken part in the study are really backing the project. They want change. They want to help other people. They have finally spoken out. I really owe it to them that they were so willing to share this personal information."

To make it easier for these women to go to rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, Girshick intends to work on a brochure that could help educate workers at these institutions about woman-to-woman sexual abuse. Girshick also hopes that more can be found out about the experiences of certain kinds of survivors that are generally not represented in her study -- Latinas and transgendered women, for instance. Still, Girshick says, a lot more needs to be done. "We still have a long, long way to go," says Girshick. There are only a handful of groups for women battered by other women in the country. "I’ve spent ten years in the domestic violence movement," Girshick laments, "and I’d say we’ve hardly moved with even heterosexual domestic abuse."

Resources and Related Websites
Professor Girshick still needs participants for her study. If you’re interested, get in touch with her at:

lgirshic@warren-wilson.edu or Professor Lori B. Girshick WWC-6124 P.O. Box 9000 Asheville, NC 28815-9000 (828) 298-3325, extension 376

To learn more about the study and Professor Girshick’s other interests, see the website listing in the sidebar.

Updated: Friday, 25 May 2001

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