INTRODUCTION

Making the Invisible Visible

At age 14, love struck. Jai Dulani was beginning ninth grade in northern India, eight thousand miles from his home in America. She was a new student at Jai's school, incredibly smart and beautiful. Jai learned that she, too, felt out of place, having moved many times for her father's job. They began confiding in each other their secrets, hopes, and fears. Soon came a flurry of love letters, secret hand-holding under desks, a quick kiss during study hall. Jai fell hard. Adding to the excitement was that no one knew. They were very careful. They had even worked out a special code to say "I love you" without their parents knowing. As Jai puts it, they were living "a secret underground love story."

Jai does not recall when the fights began, but he learned that losing was the only option. In part because his girlfriend was a victim of child abuse, she came to rely on Jai for emotional support. She insisted on knowing where he was at all times, in case she needed to talk. She felt particularly hurt when he was busy with anyone else. One time, furious that Jai was meeting up with friends, she called his home phone over ... and over ... and over again. Jai was deeply embarrassed. Challenging her only seemed to hurt her more, and he soon found it easier to lie and be late when meeting up with friends, family, or teachers. Over the next two years, her anguish and anger flourished. When she was especially upset, she might yank his hair, scratch him, grab his face, push him, or hit him with the back of her hand. She eventually turned to cutting herself and overdosing, often in front of Jai, who would cry and plead for her to stop. She seemed to be sending a clear message: you are failing me, and this is what you have driven me to. What could he possibly say to anyone? After all, their relationship did not officially exist.

Just before he turned 16, Jai and his family moved back to the United States. His girlfriend sent countless letters. "Why did you leave? I need you. Everything got worse when you left. When are you coming back? I can't take it anymore." When Jai finally stopped talking to her, she unfortunately was not prepared to stop talking with Jai. One day, she picked up the phone, dialed his grandmother, pretended to be a friend, and acquired his new contact information.

To anyone who has worked with or knows someone like Jai, his story may sound eerily familiar. That is because Jai's story is one of many that involve intimate partner violence: psychological, physical, or sexual abuse or homicide between romantic and sexual partners. It can begin, seemingly innocuously, with jealousy. Jealousy is often perceived to be a sign of love, as in, I care about you so much that I want to spend all my time with you. To avoid conflict and emotionally hurting the abuser, victims may be pushed to see friends and family less and less. When victims are blamed for angering the abuser and "causing" the abuse, no one is left in the victim's life to cry foul, to remind the victim that no one deserves to be abused. By the time abuse escalates, no one is left to help the victim escape. In a very real way, IPV flourishes when it is most invisible to the world.

Jai's story is unique, though, in one key way: today a trans* man who uses the pronoun "he," Jai identified as a girl at the time of the abuse. The context of discrimination and stigma had a devastating effect on this relationship from the very beginning. Cisgender people (i.e., those whose current gender identity matches their biological sex at birth in a way expected and privileged by society) and heterosexuals very often share the exciting news of a first date or a budding relationship, unconcerned that doing so makes their gender identity and sexual orientation more visible. By comparison, for those who identify as a sexual minority (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer) or trans* (i.e., those whose current gender identity does not match their biological sex at birth in a way expected and privileged by society), discussing a relationship with friends or family may be out of the question, since doing so requires being open about their gender identity and sexual orientation in a world that so often rejects them. Thus, whereas cisgender and heterosexual IPV victims often feel trapped by virtue of the abuse being hidden within a visible relationship, for IPV among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, the relationship itself may be invisible. How do you ask for help with a relationship that supposedly does not exist? In the instances when victims choose to make the relationship visible, IPV has historically been stereotyped as solely occurring within the realm of heterosexual-cisgender people, leading many to downplay or ignore the seriousness of relationship abuse among LGBTQ people. For these same reasons, even LGBTQ abusers and victims may not fully recognize what is happening.

LGBTQ IPV has thus been rendered largely invisible to our friends, families, schools, communities, medical and mental health providers, policymakers, law-enforcement-agencies, courts, and scholars. This remains the case despite research repeatedly concluding that LGBTQ people are more likely to experience IPV. An important step in bringing LGBTQ IPV out of the shadows would be to shed light on what we already know about the issue and how we can use this knowledge today to bring about change. This book helps bring together in one place the vast majority of published research and information about LGBTQ IPV, along the way helping identify key lessons and implications for future policy, practice, and research. This is a book that aims to make the invisible visible.

THE FIVE MYTHS OF LGBTQ IPV

IPV victim agencies play a valuable role in helping victims of both LGBTQ IPV (IPV relationships involving at least one LGBTQ partner) and HC IPV (IPV relationships involving two heterosexual-cisgender partners). They can offer short-term counseling and emergency shelter, along with operating telephone hotlines to connect victims with needed services. More fundamentally, their positive and affirming response can send a message to victims that they are indeed experiencing IPV and that they deserve better. Researchers Michael Brown and Jennifer Groscup had a very basic question: Do IPV victim agency staff take same-gender IPV as seriously as they do different-gender IPV? To answer this question, Brown and Groscup asked 120 staff members at a U.S. suburban IPV victim agency to read a fictional IPV story. In this story, the police arrive at a home after a neighbor has heard screaming and breaking glass. The police first interview one partner, who describes the incident as involving both partners trying to physically hurt one another — what is known as...