Can a Focus on Identity Abuse Help Create More Inclusive Domestic Abuse Responses to Those Who Are LGBT+?

Over the last 20 years, Catherine Donovan has been researching domestic abuse in the relationships of LGBT+ people. Intersectional feminist analysis tells us that structural inequalities including patriarchy, nationalism, capitalism, colonialism and eugenics provide the socio-political and economic contexts in which domestic abuse can take place. Those who are structurally minoritised can be subject to the abusive power and controlling behaviours of partners (or family members) with (almost) impunity. Too many of those victimised are not listened to; their victimisation is minimised or denied and, consequently, their risk and needs under-estimated. This is made worse by the economic and material dependence of victim/survivors on those who abuse them. In addition, help providers such as criminal justice, housing and health systems are imbued with culturally dominant victim blaming and ideal victim mythologies and a hierarchy of harm which privileges physical harm. The cis heteronormative public story of domestic abuse which creates overlapping binaries such as man/woman, perpetrator/victim, strong/weak, agentic/passive exacerbates the situation for LGBT+ people.

To encourage both victimised LGBT+ people to come forward and practitioners and policy makers to respond more positively, Catherine suggests that identity abuse should be included in the definition of domestic abuse. Domestic abuse can shatter the self-confidence and self-identity of those victimised for, whilst we understand that domestic abuse might include physical, sexual, economic, emotional abuse and/or coercive control, those who cause harm through domestic abuse make their harm personal. They have become familiar with their partner and understand what works in their attempts to coercively control, regulate, punish. Identity abuse can enable our understanding of how the personal is political insofar as attacks to undermine somebody’s identity as a woman, a gay man, a trans woman, a bisexual woman, a non-binary person can only work in a society where those identities have been structurally problematised. In many ways we can say that domestic abuse is ‘the same’ regardless of gender and sexuality but in key ways we know it is different because of the intersecting identities of those involved: racism and racist stereotypes about Black male sexuality will shape the experiences of a victimised Black gay man; Sexism and biphobic stereotypes about bisexuals being ‘greedy’ or sexually ‘untrustworthy’ will shape the experiences of a victimised cis bisexual woman; sexism and misogynistic stereotypes about cis heterosexual women’s gender roles, sexually, in the home and in intimate relationships will shape the experiences of a victimised, cis, heterosexual woman. Their identities matter in creating and maintaining the abusive relationship and in how help providers will respond to them. Making identity abuse part of the definition of domestic abuse could bring to the fore the intersecting identities of victimised individuals and to shed light on their victimisation, their help-seeking practices and the responses needed by help-providers.

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