LGBTQ+ Sex victims
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You are not alone
It is not your fault.
LGBTQ + Sex victims
Sexual violence can happen to anyone and by anyone, however it is most often committed by people we know in places we are supposed to feel safe. Additionally, for people in LGBTQ communities, sexual violence may also be combined with acts of verbal and physical homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. Sometimes people in LGBTQ communities are targeted specifically because of their identities.
Sexual harassment, abuse, and assault thrive when people devalue and disrespect others. To end these acts, we must work together to end the many forms of oppression – including homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia – and replace those with values of equity, respect, and consent.
People in LGBTQ communities often face unique challenges, such as:
Danger of being “outed” (to have their sexual orientation or gender identity shared; before we are ready), forced out, or forced to out ourselves by reporting sexual violence
Not wanting to be disloyal to our communities by disclosing assault by an LGBTQ partner or friend.
Not wanting to affirm harmful beliefs or stereotypes about our communities by disclosing assault by a LGBTQ partner or friend.
Risk of receiving transphobic, homophobic, and biphobic responses from social and victim services, law enforcement, legal and medical staff, and other systems.
Incorrect beliefs (by ourselves or others) that we deserve or should expect violence because of our sexuality or gender identity.
Incorrect beliefs (by ourselves or others) that the assault caused our sexuality or gender identity
Reactions and feelings after an assault
If you have experienced sexual violence, any way you react or feel is valid. People respond in many different ways and may have many different emotions, including trouble understanding what happened, helplessness, anger, self-blame, emotional disconnect, anxiety, shame, increased drug or alcohol use, fear, increased or decreased interest in sex, difficulty trusting yourself or others, difficulty concentrating, feeling betrayed by your body, or conflicted emotions about the perpetrator.
Victim service centers can support you by providing counseling and advocacy, accompaniment to medical appointments, and referrals. Services provided by victim service centers are free and confidential, and many hotlines are available 24/7. It is okay to call anonymously, and to ask for LGBTQ- specific services or referrals.
You are not alone
We know through research, through our experience, and through our work that significant percentages of people in LGBTQ communities are sexually violated at some point in their lives. Adolescents in LGBTQ communities are more likely to experience sexual harassment than their straight peers (Farris et al., 2018; Mitchell et al., 2014), and research finds that almost half of transgender adults are sexually abused or assaulted during their lives (James et al., 2016). Research also shows that over 29% of lesbian or bisexual girls and over 25% of gay or bisexual boys experienced rape (Lindley & Walsemann, 2015). Know that you are not alone and there are resources available to you.
What if I was sexually abused as a child by an adult?
Child sexual abuse includes rape, molestation, and exposure to sexual acts or material. Children are not developmentally or legally able to consent to these acts. It is never the child’s fault — children rely on and should be able to trust the adults in their lives for support, safety, and respect.Social stigma of LGBTQ sexuality can compound the impact of sexual abuse, whether survivors identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, straight, or another sexual orientation. Sexual abuse can and often does affect and complicate the way people feel about sex, sexuality, and gender identity, but sexual abuse does not “turn” someone gay or transgender. No matter the gender of the person doing harm or being harmed, sexual violence is largely about access and vulnerability.
Is sexual violence a hate crime?
Sexual abuse is always an act of violence and oppression. People in LGBTQ communities are made uniquely vulnerable through society’s disapproval of and lack of support for our communities. Additionally, sexual violence is sometimes used as a weapon against people who identify or are perceived as LGBTQ. Whether these sexual offenses are prosecuted under Hate Crimes laws will depend in many cases on local laws, the District Attorney’s priorities, and whether the victim discloses their sexuality or gender identity. Hate-motivated crimes can include sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, or any of the various forms of sexual violence.
What if I know my abuser well?
Everyone should be able to trust friends, family, and partners to respect their bodies and boundaries. Nevertheless, sexual violence occurs most often with people we know in places we are supposed to feel safe. This is true in all relationships, including those for LGBTQ folks. The power and control dynamics that can be involved may include using drugs or alcohol to incapacitate, forcing sex acts to “prove” a person’s identities, threatening to “out” someone, and withholding HIV medication or hormones as punishment.
Sexual violence in LGBTQ+ relationships
Sexual violence is never the fault of the person being abused or controlled. It’s the responsibility of the person misusing power and control to stop their abusive behaviour.
Sexual violence can happen in any type of relationship or intimate partnership. It can happen in lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, monogamous, open, polyamorous, dating, long-term, living together or not living together and even long distance. It can happen to people who identify as:
Transgender
Gender-diverse
Intersex
Queer
Sistergirl
Brotherboy
Cisgender
When present in LGBTQ+ relationships, sexual violence can involve perpetrators using tactics unique to those relationships. It can also involve increased risk due to the valid fears that people who identify as LGBTQ+ may have about disclosing violence. These can include:
The threat of being ‘outed’ if the abused partner has not disclosed their sexuality, gender, intersex status to family, friends, workplace or cultural community.
Telling, or threatening to tell, others about HIV status (or other illness) without permission.
Applying pressure to have surgery to “normalise” a partner’s body, sex organs or physical appearance.
Pressure to confirm, look or act more ‘male’, ‘female’ or straight.
The fear of a lack of confidentiality within, or of being isolated from LGBTQ+ communities.
A fear of discrimination or minimisation by police, legal systems and service providers.
Fear of non-offending parents that their right to stay with their children may be challenged due to different legal rights of LGBTQ+ parents.
Financial discrimination that makes accessing shared financial resources of an LGBTQ+ couple more difficult or impossible.
A fear of nowhere to go for support that is safe and culturally appropriate.
Shame and confusion around society’s assumptions that women are not violent and men cannot be victims.
Common Barriers for LGBTQIA+ Victims/Survivors
It is important to understand that Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender, and Queer people are also targeted for sexual violence based on their sexual orientation and all people, regardless of sexual orientation, can be targets based on their perceived gender expression. In these cases sexual violence is used as a form of control to maintain heterosexism.
Intimate Partner Violence
If you are being abused by an intimate partner of the same-sex, you may experience a broad range of feelings including denial, confusion, and shame. Women who have been assaulted by another woman may believe that it isn’t possible for a woman to rape another woman, that sexual assault is only perpetuated by men. In many cases, this stems from a belief that lesbian sex is not “real sex.” The misconception then follows that if lesbians aren’t considered able to have sex then they certainly cannot sexually assault one another. This is not true. Considering that men are taught from a young age that being vulnerable is a sign of weakness, gay men may have feelings of shame or inadequacy connected to being sexually assaulted that make them reluctant to admit or report their assault. In order to understand same-sex sexual assault and to work toward its prevention, it is important to acknowledge and commit to challenge homophobia and transphobia.
Common Barriers for Same-Sex Victims/Survivors
Not being taken seriously or having their experience minimized
Not having their experience called sexual assault or rape
Having to explain their experience in more detail than one would ask a heterosexual survivor or a survivor of male-female assault
Having to educate those they reach out to
Having their experience sensationalized
Increasing people’s homophobia or being seen as a traitor in their community because they told their story to straight people
Mistakenly being seen as the perpetrator
Being blamed for the assault
Not being understood
Being treated in a homophobic manner by police, hospital staff, rape crisis center, counselors and others
Being “outed” (having their sexual orientation revealed without their consent)
Victimization by Sexual Orientation
An Overview of 2010 Findings on Victimization by Sexual Orientation https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cdc_nisvs_victimization_final-a.pdf
Studies suggest that around half of transgender people and bisexual women will experience sexual violence at some point in their lifetimes.
As a community, LGBTQ+ people face higher rates of poverty, stigma, and marginalization, which put us at greater risk for sexual assault. We also face higher rates of hate-motivated violence, which can often take the form of sexual assault. Moreover, the ways in which society both hypersexualizes LGBTQ+ people and stigmatizes our relationships can lead to intimate partner violence that stems from internalized homophobia and shame.
The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found for LGB people:
44 percent of lesbians and 61 percent of bisexual women experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, compared to 35 percent of straight women
26 percent of gay men and 37 percent of bisexual men experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, compared to 29 percent of straight men
46 percent of bisexual women have been raped, compared to 17 percent of straight women and 13 percent of lesbians
22 percent of bisexual women have been raped by an intimate partner, compared to 9 percent of straight women
40 percent of gay men and 47 percent of bisexual men have experienced sexual violence other than rape, compared to 21 percent of straight men
Within the LGBTQ+ community, transgender people and bisexual women face the most alarming rates of sexual violence. Among both of these populations, sexual violence begins early, often during childhood.
The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 47% of transgender people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime.
Among people of color, American Indian (65%), multiracial (59%), Middle Eastern (58%) and Black (53%) respondents of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey were most likely to have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime
Nearly half (48 percent) of bisexual women who are rape survivors experienced their first rape between ages 11 and 17.
For LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual assault, their identities – and the discrimination they face surrounding those identities – often make them hesitant to seek help from police, hospitals, shelters or rape crisis centers, the very resources that are supposed to help them.
85 percent of victim advocates surveyed by the NCAVP reported having worked with an LGBTQ+ survivor who was denied services because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that one in five (20%) respondents who were incarcerated in jail, prison, or juvenile detention in the past year were sexually assaulted by facility staff during that time. Additionally, 17% of respondents who stayed at one or more homeless shelters in the past year were sexually assaulted at the shelter because they were transgender.
Victimization rates and traits of sexual and gender minorities in the United States
Victimization rates and traits of sexual and gender minorities in the United States: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba6910?fbclid=IwAR01oLZW1XfpYlZIif_XRxOTzgBjmddp6ML9zTl6URfqFYCw6vL88CwguHc
The National Crime Victimization Survey, the nation’s primary source of representative information on criminal victimization, began documenting sexual orientation and gender identity in 2016 and released data publicly for the first time in 2019. Research find SGMs (sexual and gender minorities) disproportionately are victims across a variety of crimes. The rate of violent victimization for SGMs is 71.1 victimizations per 1000 people compared with 19.2 victimizations per 1000 people for those who are not SGMs. SGMs are 2.7 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than non-SGMs. These findings raise the importance of further considering sexual orientation and gender identity in victimization and interventions.
LGBT+ people (16+) are nearly 4 times more likely to experience violent victimization, compared to non-LGBT+ people.
LGBT+ people are about 6 times more likely to experience violence by someone who is well known to them and about 2.5 times more likely to undergo it at the hands of a stranger, compared to non-LGBT+ people.
LBT women are 5 times more likely than non-LBT women to experience violent victimization. The risk of violence for GBT men is more than twice that of non-GBT men.
About half of all victimizations are not reported to police. LGBT+ people are as likely as non-LGBT+ people to report violence to police.
LGBTQ+ Victims/Survivors
LGBT+ Victims/Survivors of sexual violence in conflict situations: a realist review of health interventions in low-and middle-income countries. Published: 26 February 2020
https://conflictandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13031-020-0254-5
Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against women and girls has been the subject of increasing research and scholarship. Less is known about the health of men, boys and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT+) and other gender non-binary persons who survive CRSV. This paper is the first systematic realist review on medical, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) interventions that focusses on male and LGBT+ survivors of CRSV. The review explores the gender differences in context, mechanisms and outcomes that underpin interventions addressing the health and psychosocial wellbeing of male and LGBT+ survivors. The aim is to contribute to the design and delivery of gender-sensitive and, when needed, gender-specific approaches for interventions that respond to specific needs of different groups of all survivors.
Although some mental health and psychosocial consequences of sexual violence against men and boys may be similar among male and female survivors, the way each process trauma, display symptoms, seek help, adhere to treatment and improve their mental health differ by gender.
Sexual violence against men and boys has often been recognized as torture, mutilation or degrading treatment, omitting the gendered and sexual aspects of these abuses. Acts of sexual violence against men and boys include anal and oral rape and other forms of victimization, including gang rape, enforced sterilization, mutilation, castration, blunt trauma to genitals, forced nudity, forced masturbation, forced rape perpetration, and forced witness to sexual violence against family members or peers. This sexual violence can occur in many settings, including detention centres, military sites, refugee camps and people’s homes during and after conflict.
Sexual violence in conflict can be used as a form of torture aiming to inflict psychological suffering, terrorise, humiliate, disempower and break down the identity of perceived enemies or political prisoners. Perpetrators of sexual violence against men often seek to impose domination, power and control through their acts. Prevailing gender norms that manifest in sexual violence against men and boys also appear in sexual violence against women and girls.
Sexual abuse has been used for torture and interrogation, for initiation into military or paramilitary forces, to destabilise families, terrorise communities, hinder social cohesion, and to perpetrate ethnic cleansing. Impunity for perpetrators is usually the norm [8]. Sexual abuses often occur jointly with other crimes, such as killing, looting, pillage, forced displacement and arbitrary detention. Research documenting the prevalence of CRSV against men is extremely limited, but studies indicate that the phenomenon is widespread. For example, a cross-sectional population survey in Liberia found that 32.6% of male former combatants experienced sexual violence . Another population survey in DRC estimated the prevalence CRSV among men at 23.6% . Research from Sri Lanka estimates that 9–21% of men experienced some form of CRSV . On the other hand, a cross sectional survey In Cote d’Ivoire found that less than 1% of men in conflict-affected communities reported sexual violence from a combatant or other official.
Violence against LGBT+ people in conflict settings has been recognized by the United Nations as a form of gender-based violence (GBV) that is often motivated by homophobic and transphobic attitudes and directed at those perceived as defying hegemonic gender norms. In post-conflict settings, LGBT+ people often experience harassment and need to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity. Abuse and violence by security agents, local community members and other asylum seekers or refugees is common. Additionally, ‘honour killings’ may target LGBT+ individuals. Exclusion from economic opportunities or from access to services may also occur as a result of homophobic attitudes.
The mental health consequences of sexual violence can be severe and long-lasting. The list of symptoms and antisocial behavior associated with sexual torture, trauma and violence includes: impaired memory and concentration, low self-esteem, difficulty relating to others, difficulty engaging in intimate relationships, anger outbursts, explosive rage, emotional withdrawal, detachment, lack of adherence to family life, self-mutilation, suicidal behavior, sleep disturbances, nightmares, apathy, helplessness and cognitive impairment. Alcohol and drug abuse are also reportedly common among survivors . Additionally, male survivors of sexual violence may be particularly concerned about threats to their perceived notions of masculinity, self-doubt about their sexual orientation, fear of rejection, and concerns about not being able to prevent the abuse, and about re-victimization . Access to care for male victims can also be challenging, as they are less often identified by health providers as being in need of protection and psychosocial assistance than female survivors.
Physical health consequences of sexual violence against men and boys include sexually-transmitted infections (STI), HIV, infertility, sexual dysfunctions, impotence, genital infections, genital injuries, blood in stools, abscesses and rupture of the rectum, diarrhea, loss of body parts, chronic pain, palpitations and headaches. Non-genital and rectal injuries may include bruises and contusions, lacerations, ligature marks to ankles, wrists and neck and pattern injuries (handprints, finger marks, belt marks, bite marks).
Sexual violence against males, as other forms of torture, affects not only the survivors, but also their families and communities. Many survivors are often abandoned or rejected by their families because of the stigma surrounding sexual violence against men. Increased perpetration of violence, substance abuse and self-imposed isolation from the family and community can also increase male isolation and disrupt family life in the aftermath of male sexual abuse. For those families, the loss of a working-age male can seriously affect their livelihood options. Some survivors are isolated and ostracized by their community, which poses additional challenges for their recovery and economic survival .
LGBT+ persons who survive sexual violence may be confronted with the additional challenge of a heightened sense of vulnerability linked to their sexual orientation or gender identity. This type of hate crime may also instill fear and pressure among LGBT+ individuals to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity as a means to protect themselves from violence, and thus further aggravate mental health symptoms .
