As a transgender man, Allan says he had nowhere to go when his relationship became violent and a partner would beat him up and force him to have sex with men for money.
“There were times when the violence got too much for me and I thought I was living in a bad dream. I lost my job, car, home and had no money,” said 49-year-old Allan.
At the time, Allan was female, the sex he was assigned at birth, but he says he has always identified as a man.
Allan moved to San Francisco to get away from what he says was an abusive relationship and take refuge at the San Francisco Asian women’s shelter, one of the first and few shelters in the US that offers a specific program and a trained social worker for gay and transgender victims of domestic violence, which is often called intimate partner violence.
“There has been a steady increase of intimate partner violence in the LGBT community and the rates are higher than of hate violence towards LGBT, but we still don’t have enough support services to help people get out of violent relationships,” said Chai Jindasurat, co-director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy at the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), a New York City-based national organization working to reduce violence and its impact on LGBT individuals in the US.
By April 2015 NCAVP had recorded 14 LGBT homicides for the year. Eight of the incidents were reportedly intimate partner-, family- or sexual violence-related and six were hate or police violence-related.
In 2013, NCAVP’s 18 local partner organizations received 2,697 reports of intimate partner violence (IPV), a slight increase from the 2,679 reports received in 2012. The NCAVP documented 21 intimate partner homicides in 2013, which is equal to the 21 homicides in 2012 but more than three times the six IPV-related homicides in 2010.
Also in 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the national intimate partner and sexual violence survey, which detailed data about sexual assaults that occurred in 2010 and broke it down by sexual orientation. It was the first national survey estimating how prevalent intimate partner violence, sexual violence and stalking are among people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual in the US.
It found four in 10 lesbian women, six in 10 bisexual women, and one in three heterosexual womenreported experiencing rape, physical violence or stalking within the context of an intimate partner relationship at least once during their lifetime.
The CDC data also shows that four out of 10 gay men, half of bisexual men), and one in five heterosexual men in the US have experienced sexual violence other than rape at some point in their lives.
The CDC survey didn’t address violence in transgender relationships. Jindasurat says people in such relationships face increasing hate violence and intimate partner violence.
“There aren’t any specific domestic violence shelters or housing support for LGBT individuals in most of the country, but especially here in San Francisco where the community is very big,” said Carolina Morales, co-director of Community United Against Violence (CUAV), a counselling and support center that has been working with survivors of domestic violence in the LGBT community in San Francisco since 1979.
Morales says that she routinely receives complaints from LGBT individuals who have been turned away at the domestic violence shelters in San Francisco.
“When they are allowed into some traditional domestic violence shelters, oftentimes the shelter staff don’t have the training to work with LGBT individuals or the other housemates call them names and look down on them,” said Morales, who has been with CUAV since 2009.
Hediana Utarti runs the queer Asian women and transgender support program at the San Francisco Asian women’s shelter. She worked with Allan during his recovery and supported him during his transition. She says that the shelter receives more than 2,000 calls a year on its domestic violence call line and about 40 a year from LGBT individuals.
“I think there are more LGBT victims of domestic violence, but they need specific services just for them because when they call a help line they want to speak to someone who doesn’t assume that their abuser is the opposite sex and understands their situation,” said Utarti.
She says that Allan was fearless in that he immediately said in his group therapy sessions that his abuser was a woman, but that most lesbian, bisexual or transgender women hide that their abuser is a woman because they fear the homophobic attitudes and responses of the other women in the shelters.
The shelter has five rooms and can house 15 women at one time. Utarti admits that this isn’t enough to meet the demand of heterosexual survivors of domestic violence, let alone the LGBT individuals that they get calls from.
She and Morales say that for many LGBT survivors of domestic violence, the most helpful resource is transitional housing services, especially in San Francisco’s expensive housing rental market. The services could include support to find and pay for an individual apartment or studio for three months to a year while the individual goes through counselling, especially in the case of highly vulnerable individuals.
“Many LGBT survivors of domestic violence are already facing high levels of discrimination, but transgender women of color are extremely vulnerable to violence and have the least access to legal, health and financial resources,” said Morales. “They are also less likely to seek help from their parents or other family members than other survivors of domestic violence.”
Allan says that during the time he was in the violent relationship with his partner, he was an undocumented Mexican immigrant and barely spoke English.
“A few times I called the police on my partner but … I had no way of telling them my side of the story.” After arriving at the San Francisco Asian women’s shelter, Allan began learning English and with the help of Utarti obtained a US visa specifically to protect victims of sexual trafficking.
Other LGBT survivors of domestic violence say that there aren’t enough support groups for them nor enough accessible therapists who understand the power dynamics and the nuances of violence in gay or transgender relationships.
“I am physically bigger and stronger than my partner, but she is the abusive one,” said a 36-year-old lesbian woman who lives in San Francisco and didn’t want to give her full name for privacy reasons. “The power dynamics are very different in gay relationships and you can’t apply the traditional domestic violence assumptions or treatments.”