Help-Seeking Barriers Among Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence Victimization

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals experience intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization at disproportionate rates compared to cisgender and heterosexual individuals. Given the widespread consequences of experiencing IPV victimization, intervention and prevention strategies should identify readily accessible and culturally competent services for this population. SGM individuals who experience IPV victimization face unique individual-, interpersonal-, and systemic-level barriers to accessing informal and formal support services needed to recover from IPV. This chapter reviews IPV victimization prevalence rates among SGM individuals in the context of minority stress and highlights unique forms of IPV victimization affecting this population, namely identity abuse. The literature on help-seeking processes among IPV survivors in general and help-seeking patterns and barriers specifically among SGM individuals who experience IPV victimization in the context of minority stress (e.g., discrimination, internalized stigma, rejection sensitivity, identity concealment) are discussed. How minority stressors at individual, interpersonal, and structural levels act as barriers to help-seeking among SGM individuals experiencing IPV victimization is presented. The chapter concludes with a review of emerging evidence for interventions aimed at reducing help-seeking barriers among SGM individuals who face IPV victimization and a discussion of future directions for research on help-seeking barriers in this population

Policing transgender people and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Knowledge regarding policing of transgender people in situations of intimate partner violence (IPV) is scarce within policing literature. While this may be because transgender victim-survivors of IPV are one of the most hidden groups of IPV survivors, transgender people face specific and unique forms of IPV related to their identity. Police officers, therefore, need to be aware of the specific forms of IPV transgender victim-survivors experience and must be cognizant of the specific circumstances involved when responding to incidents of transgender IPV. Police recognition of transgender IPV will increase the reporting of transgender IPV; effect responses to transgender IPV; increase outcomes of justice for victims and; push recommendations concerning changing current police responses and operational practices regarding IPV. Yet, bias towards individuals who identify as transgender has been found in the literature regarding police practices and perceptions of LGBTIQ+ people. Research suggests transgender people are generally uncomfortable seeking help from the police. Therefore, policing transgender victim-survivors of IPV poses an ongoing problem since notions of exclusion and the sense of ‘difference’ transgender people have in terms of their perceived or outward identity form barriers between police and members of the transgender community during times of victimization