RUNNING HEAD: WE NEED MORE RESOURCES

Abstract

While men’s sexual violence against women is unarguably a social and public health issue, both

nationally representative data and smaller studies tell us that rates for LGBTQ+ individuals are

equally or significantly higher. Despite this, there remains little structural support for LGBTQ+

survivors. This paper highlights the voices of 38 QTPOC-identified (queer and trans people of

color) Southerners who have experienced sexual violence and came together across three focus

groups to detail recount their interactions with advocates and other professionals and explore

post-traumatic needs. Nearly all survivors reported that the level of awareness regarding sexual

violence in their communities was limited, with most reporting that they did not successfully

access mainstream services, due to concerns about homophobia, transphobia, and racism. To

address sexual violence in LGBTQ+ communities, survivors pointed to the importance of

friendship and community networks “outside the system,” resource sharing about non-

heteronormative violence tactics, and holding batterers accountable for their behavior within

LGBTQ+ circles. Findings highlight the need to move beyond “culturally competent” health care

by proactively engaging LGBTQ+ communities in education, networking, resource sharing, and

anti-violence outreach.

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"We Need More Resources": Stories of QTPOC Survival in the South

Literature Review

While men’s sexual violence against women is unarguably a social and public health

issue—24% of women have experienced it (Black et. al, 2011)—the National Intimate Partner

and Sexual Violence Survey (2010) tells us that rates for LGB men and women are equally as

high: 28% of gay-identified men, 30% of bisexual-identified men, 34% of lesbian women, and

35% of bisexual women have experienced sexual violence at the hands of an intimate partner in

their lifetime. What’s more, around 10% of heterosexually-identified men and 7% of

heterosexually-identified women report experiencing sexual violence from a same-sex/same-

gender intimate partner. Rates for trans identified individuals, while significantly understudied,

are much higher (Courvant & Cook-Daniels, 1998; Grant et al., 2016; Landers & Gilsanz, 2009).

Despite these rates, there is little structural support for LGBTQ+ survivors. For instance,

the narrative driving discussions of causes, consequences, and solutions to intimate partner

violence (IPV) and sexual violence is gender-based and heteronormative, which can leave

advocates and healthcare professionals feeling underprepared and lacking in knowledge about

LGBTQ+ sexual violence (Grant et al., 2016); lead to a “double closet” of silence for LGBTQ+

identified people feeling the added stigma of experiencing violence (Bornstein et al., 2006;

McClellen, 2005; Calton, Cattaneo, and Gebhard, 2016); and lend itself toward a hostile and

discriminatory medical and legal system that often revictimizes survivors (Calton, Cattaneo, and

Gebhard, 2016; Grant et al, 2016; Hassouneh & Glass, 2008; Simpson & Helfrich, 2005).

Indeed, survivors of violence often report avoiding post-traumatic care because of fear of

discrimination (Kulkin et al., 2007; Renzetti, 1992; Turell, 2000), and a number of studies have

noted that police, providers of legal services, crisis lines, clergy, domestic violence agencies, and

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shelters are the least utilized by same-sex/same-gender/LGBTQ+ IPV survivors (Hammond,

1988; Letiellier, 1994; McClellen et al., 2002; Merrill & Wolfe, 2000; Renzetti, 1992; Scherzer,

1998; Turell, 2000).

Unfortunately, narrow, heteronormative gender-based understandings of IPV and sexual

violence also create difficulties for LGBTQ+ people attempting to label and define their

experiences outside the parameters of heterosexual, cisgender relationships (Bornstein et al,

2006; Girshick, 2002; Kulkin, et al, 2007; Lie & Gentlewarrior, 1991; Marrujo & Kreger, 1996;

McKenry, Serovich, Mason, & Mosack, 2006). For instance, McClellen (2005) found that people

in same-gender relationships needed education and advocacy because they lacked awareness of

the specific types of IPV facing non-heterosexual individuals and had no knowledge of the

magnitude or extent of the problem. This supports an earlier study (Turell, 2000), that

highlighted LGBT people’s lack of seeking help was directly related to their inability to

recognize the significance of violence in their lives.

In the South, there are additional barriers to education and post-traumatic care services

related to poverty, rurality, and racism, which lead to multiplicative marginalization for

LGBTQ+ survivors of violence. As an example, one recent study found that women living in

rural (vs. urban or suburban) areas were significantly more likely to experience intimate partner

violence (Rennison, DeKeseredy, & Drageiwicz, 2013); when coupled with the knowledged that

those who live in rural areas are less likely to have access to primary or emergency health care,

this finding is particularly troubling (Bolin et al, 2015). What’s more, studies consistently show

that intimate partner violence disproportionately affects ethnic minority women and women in

low socioeconomic conditions (Garcia & Sharif, 2015; Rennison & Welchans, 2000; Stockman,

Hayashi, & Campbell, 2015; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000); while a few studies have found that

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racial disparities become less pronounced when accounting specifically for socioeconomic status

(Cunradi, Caetano, Clark, & Schafer, 2000; Cunradi, Caetano, & Schafer, 2002; Rennison &

Planty, 2003).

However, it should be noted that with only a few exceptions, most research on LGBTQ+

intimate partner and sexual violence does not (or cannot, as is the case with most nationally

representative data collection) adequately take into account the intersectional nature of identity

and oppression. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) collects data

yearly that is, by far, the most holistic.1 The 2016 report aggregated data on 1,976 incidents of

intimate partner violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected people from 17 local NCAVP

member organizations in 14 states. It found that people of color made up more than half of all

LGBT and HIV-positive survivors of intimate partner violence; LGBT Black individuals were

more likely to be injured from their experiences; and 77% of all intimate homicide victims were

people of color (NCAVP, 2016). What’s more, of the 27% of survivors that sought emergency

shelter, 44% were denied access (with the most common reason for denial being “gender

identity”); while 25% of survivors reported hostility or indifference from police and 31%

reported being wrongfully arrested themselves (NCAVP, 2016).

In general, LGBTQ people of color face unique barriers because of their multiplicative

marginalization. For instance, they experience high rates of poverty and housing insecurity

1
Though it should be noted that there are limitations with NCAVP data. As they report, “NCAVP members’
capacity for data collection varied based upon the program’s resources, staffing, available technology, and other
factors. These considerations resulted in some programs submitting partial information in some categories, which
creates incomplete and dissimilar amounts of data for different variables within the 2015 data set. Moreover,
because of the nature of crisis intervention and direct service work that is done as data is collected through
NCAVP’s incident form, missing values are common… In addition, not all NCAVP member organizations can
collect data in the same way… Some NCAVP members have more capacity (i.e., staff, volunteers, and time) to
collect aggregate and person-level data, as well as conduct outreach to educate and inform LGBTQ and HIV-
affected survivors of their services, thereby increasing reporting. Some organizations have less capacity and are
unable to submit both aggregate and person-level data. This disparity reflects the historic lack of funding, resources
and capacity-building for LGBTQ and HIV-specific organizations, particularly those outside of urban areas.”

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which can make them more reliant on intimate partners for financial and housing resources,

while also experiencing high rates of bias and discrimination in their workplaces, which can

threaten their financial and social support systems (Grant et al., 2016). Simultaneously, LGBTQ

survivors report fearing that they might experience racism and/or anti-LGBTQ bias from service

providers, other survivors of IPV in places like communal shelter, and in their own communities

if they seek support (Domestic Violence, 2016). In these ways, as NCAVP reports, “LGBTQ

survivors of color may be reluctant to seek criminal or civil legal recourses for IPV in fear of

experiencing anti LGBTQ, racist, and/or xenophobic violence by law enforcement and for fear of

involving their abusive partners, whom they often love and care for, in a system that is unjust

and biased toward LGBTQ people and people of color” (2016).

Despite these barriers, individuals who recognize their experiences as existing on the

spectrum of violence do seek help from friends as primary sources of support (Beeler, Rawls,

Herdt, & Cohler, 1999; McClellen et al., 2002; Merrill & Wolfe, 2000; Renzetti, 1992; Scherzer,

1998; Turell, 2000). Because of this, survivors also often favor community-focused solutions to

violence reduction over and above “cultural competency” models targeted at improving

mainstream services (Bornstein et al, 2006; Kulkin et al, 2007). Bornstein and colleagues (2006)

specifically emphasized the importance of friendship and community networks in helping

identify abuse, educate the community, and hold batterers accountable, thus effectively avoiding

interactions with medical and legal service providers.

But, in targeting LGBTQ+ people specifically for IPV and sexual violence education and

training, it’s important not to overgeneralize or homogenize the community (Ristock, 2003). As

Cruz and Firestone (1998) pointed out early in LGBT IPV research, it’s important to understand

that similarities within the LGBT community are just as meaningful as differences between

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LGBT communities, and our structural policy suggestions cannot be one size fits all. To

adequately address lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community preparedness to

address sexual violence, these communities needed to be assessed wholistically if not separately

(Greenwood et al., 2002).

To this author’s knowledge, the only study to do so has been Turrell, Herrmann,

Hollander, and Galletly (2012), who found that bisexual men and women faced specific stigma

surrounding the “actual existence” of their identities and questioned whether services were for

them at all; gay men and lesbians engaged in a fair amount of denial or avoidance (gay men

faced stigma related to masculinity and the emasculating nature of admitting to being a “victim”,

while lesbians reified the notion of a lesbian utopia or that violence doesn’t occur between

women); and trans individuals noted their social isolation as an issue, but also pointed to the

multiple avenues of violence and marginalization they face, both in relationships and more

broadly in society.

In their 2015 synthesis of the literature on post-traumatic help-seeking, with a focus on

intersectionality, Parry and O’Neal write,

“Specifically, future inquiry should aim to (1) uncover the ways sexual minority IPV
victims reach out for formal and informal assistance (e.g., non-profit organizations,
traditional IPV service providers, LGBTQ service providers, friends, family), (2)
identify the unique barriers that sexual minority IPV victims face when help-seeking
(e.g., homophobia, disbelief, fears of outing), (3) gain knowledge surrounding their
overall experiences (e.g., ease of service attainment, assessments of service helpfulness),
and (4) understand the barriers to help-seeking that transgender and bisexual IPV
victims encounter when reaching out for assistance… To point number four, the dearth of
research examining the help-seeking behavior and experiences of transgender IPV
victims is particularly problematic as research indicates that these individuals may
experience increased risk of IPV compared to other sexual minorities (Landers &
Gilsanz, 2009).”

Accordingly, this paper highlights the voices of 38 LGBTQ+ identified Southerners,

mostly Black, Latinx, or bi/multiracial who have experienced sexual violence and came together

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across three focus groups to detail their experiences of violence, recount their interactions with

advocates and other professionals, and explore their post-traumatic needs. This work centers the

voices of those who simultaneously are most negatively impacted by intimate partner and sexual

violence and face the largest barriers to care.

Data & Methods

This paper uses focus group “community conversations” to highlight the voices of 38

LGBTQ+ identified Southerners, mostly Black, Latinx, or bi/multiracial who have experienced

sexual violence and came together across three focus groups to detail their experiences of

violence, recount their interactions with advocates and other professionals, and explore their

post-traumatic needs. Initially, the setup and function of these community conversations were

decided upon in consultation with advocates and employees of a local anti-violence non-profit

organization. To protect the identities of those involved, no additional descriptive details will be

given about community members (e.g. ages, race ethnicities, pseudonyms). Occasionally, as it is

important to context and was effectively recorded in the transcription, the race ethnicity and

gender identity or sexuality of a speaker will be noted.

We designed the conversations to take place before or after LGBTQ+ Community

Wellness Days. The first session took place during dinner (provided to community members) and

was followed by gentle, candlelight yoga (free to those who participated). The second session

took place after the dinner hour, before an instructor-led paint night with other arts and crafts

(free to those who participated). The third session targeted the Latinx community specifically

(upon the request of the non-profit organization the author was working with), taking place

during dinner (provided) and preceding an instructor-guided salsa and bachata workshop (free).

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As this work was considered preliminary—there was not a singular methodological

approach employed for selecting participants, we used techniques from traditional convenience,

snowball, and participant-driven sampling methods. Conversations and wellness days were

widely advertised on social media (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) as well as in person using

flyers, posted around the school and at community businesses. We relied on other local LGBTQ+

organizations to advertise the event, both online and in person, and tell their patrons.

Additionally, we relied on and had a great number of people participate because of word-of-

mouth between/among friends and family.

No one was turned away from the conversations or wellness days, even if they admitted

they had not, themselves, experienced violence (for instance, we had a few people show up who

wanted to learn how to support their friends/family). The conversations lasted from 60-85

minutes each, and were recorded using DropVox (direct recording/uploading to DropBox) on an

iPad. The author, an undergraduate research assistant, and two advocates for the local non-profit

anti-violence organization were present for the first two of the community conversations, while

the author was not present during the third session (but the others were). The last session,

targeting the Latinx community, included four additional interpreters and translators.

Analytical Techniques

After transcribing focus group sessions, they were coded and analyzed using MAXQDA

(for mac). This type of coded content analysis is generally thought to take three forms:

conventional, directed, or summative (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). While conventional analysis is

descriptive, mostly because the literature/theory on the subject is limited, directed attempts to

validate or extend a previous theory (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Summative analysis identifies,

quantifies, and often latent analyzes (e.g. infers meaning) particular words or groups of word

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(Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). In this way, this paper is summative in nature; keywords (such as

“resources”) were determined during the data collection and transcription of the focus groups,

they were then counted and briefly quantitatively summarized before a latent analysis was

completed using a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2006).

The general inductive approach is key here, as this paper seeks to identify and describe

the core meanings evident in the focus group narratives as relevant to the objectives we initially

set out with (e.g. assessing the needs of LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual violence). Unlike grounded

theory construction, discourse analysis, or phenomenology, a general inductive approach is

concerned only with describing emergent and important themes and informing future research

endeavors that can then work to disentangle those themes, test them against theories, use them to

generate or discover new theories, or more fully create a coherent story about lived experiences

(Thomas, 2006).

Findings

Below I detail these findings with their own words, as they fit into three overarching

categories: service provision and traumatic care needs; “resources” and education; and peers and

community networks.

Service Provision & Traumatic Care Needs

Many individuals highlighted the difficulties in accessing traditional post-traumatic

governmental and non-governmental care services, sometimes citing past experiences with

homophobia or racism and other times discussing the complicated nature of, as an example, not

wanting your undocumented abuser to be deported simply because they have abused you. One

older transwomen noted:

Ain’t nothin we can do but what we are doing now; sitting here talking about it, and those
people are always going to be accepting it. They're going to call the policeman, the

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policeman is going to lock them up. Those people are going to go to court and say, “"he
said he's sorry he's not going to do it anymore." He's going to get out and do it all over
again.

In a separate focus group, a Latinx woman expressed the difficulty that she had when she

spoke to a traditional care service provider, who told her that if the abuse what “that serious”, she

should call the police. This woman, though, noted:

If it’s that severe… than somebody going to jail. It can even escalate to deportation. I
didn’t want to because they [care provider] were basically threatening him that nothing
would be the same if I continued.

Many younger participants mentioned that they had been laughed at, ridiculed, turned away, or

ignored by service providers, including this from a non-binary trans-masculine individual:

But when I needed help, I got laughed at. Because at the time I identified as a lesbian and
so did my partner, and the police weren't going to help me. It wasn't healthy, they think
that violence in women-against-women was not a thing… And it took that long and it
took a safe space, because I was unstable. So there's a lot of things that we can do better.

Another, during the same session, noted:

But I also think that generally institutions and communities ignore violence until it is life-
threatening. I think that's why I perceive violence to be just physical abuse and extreme
physical abuse.

Someone responded by bringing up the need to have educated care providers:

…the next resource I ever had was you know, when I finally either had the strength or the
empowerment to seek professional, like either it was a therapist or a doctor, who was
understanding. Who, you know, was either educated, or knew what I was going through.
And so, for me, it's also about that sort of outreach of what is being discussed here. What
is important for the LGBTQ community, what's important, so that other professionals
when they are reached or someone that happens to be a friend, or an ally, will know what
to do. And so, I think of education as educating outside, as well. And getting that
everywhere. I think that's important.

In another session, the focus was on self-education and education of the community, which tied

directly into further conversations around what we mean by “resources”:

I think ideally it would be good to have a standard education for healthy relationships.
Sort of like everyone gets sex ed, everybody generally has sex ed, it'd be nice to have like

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a, just things to be aware of when getting into a relationship. And there are those people
who just don't know.

Another individual added:

But like, when you don't have the language or like the education about these things, it
gets scary. Like, should I trust myself? Can I trust myself right now? I want to. Like I
want to know what's going on. And I've just been in that situation so many times, it's so
frustrating. I don't want to be there anymore.

“Resources” and Education

In all of the sessions, facilitators pressed community members to expand what they meant

by “resources” or “education,” often by asking, “What do you mean? Can you expand? What

would that look like for you/your community? What types of issues do you need to know more

about?” Given the knowledge that traditional service providers often do not have the skills—or

cannot hold the best interest of survivors—we wanted to know what community members and

survivors might like to see provided by non-traditional organizations or facilities. One Latinx

community member responded:

In my case, I have a sister that was experiencing violence a while ago with her husband.
And she came to tell me about it a long time ago. She stayed so long in it until she
decided to talk with us girls and we decided that she had to make the decision to end it at
once, but it wasn’t working in our favor. And the days went on like this until one day he
was killing her, alone, and I was calling her freaking phone… and I didn’t know how
to… that she couldn’t just leave, she was in a tight spot… I didn’t know how to get her
out.

An older queer Black man said:

Like, more… group talks. And, um, something I’m realizing, even in my life… just doing
more check-ins with people, and, like, just asking people, you know, what’s going – I
don’t know. Just, creating more of a space for these conversations alongside just in
everyday life, I guess… but personally something that I always worry about is just not
having the vocabulary and like, --I mentioned this before-- but not feeling like I can
articulate. I don’t know if the solution is… I guess that the solution is just like, talking
about these things with people I believe to be more knowledgeable about them. Or like,
you know, reading resources that have reading material for the things I want to learn
about.

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Another added that they find solace and comfort not in traditional therapy, but in more artistic

and expressive forms of healing:

For me, personally, it might not work for everybody, but in dancing there was something,
um, something to open, to work with that in mind, right? It just, it’s a passion, it can be.
Music, it can be singing, or any kind of art.

Others pointed specifically to institutions or service providers that could be educated by non-

traditional organizations, like that one we were working with:

Schools really need help for all the youth to know what a healthy relationship is, and
what abuse is and then I think, for women who do have, or women or LGBT men who
are in abusive relationships, for them to have support, emotional support; knowledge
people that can give them; an education and all that.

White another younger non-binary person discussed the types of resources a local organization

provides to young teen mothers, and made connections between what they need and what

LGBTQ+ survivors of violence often need:

The resources they provide are really various but, it can range from housing, it can range
from helping them apply to WICK, SNAP, Medicaid, helping them you know, basically
helping them empower themselves. With like education, because people don't know how
to apply for things. And then they will assess the individual's case, and if they are staying
on someone's couch and they are pregnant they need to: First, find them housing. If they
don't have a job, they can take them to the job fair. Or the job center.

Briefly, in two of the three focus groups, there was conversation around accountability processes

within the LGBTQ+ community when it comes to people “outed” as abusive or harmful. Many

expressed that while they definitely wanted abusive people to stop being abusive, it can be

equally harmful for the outed community members to become even more isolated:

And there's very little again, accountability, or like there's very little space for
accountability to take place and so disposability takes up space. And that's really harmful.
Because folks are "exed" out and stop coming to things but their behavior, which is
harmful behavior, does not adjust and they end up going to another set of folks and
perpetuating more violence and the cycle continues. I've just never seen an accountability
process done effectively. There have been attempts but, for me, I don't know how to
guide or what are some steps in order to be able to, as soon as the situation is recognized,
facilitate accountability and resolution.

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But, at the end of the day, what’s needed is a better solution to handling severe cases of violence

where marginalized individuals don’t want to get the police involved; as one individual shared,

there are often times when you can’t call the police to get a restraining order—of course, we also

know that restraining orders are often hard to enforce or not enforced by the criminal system—

but you still don’t want to see your abuser:

So yeah, a close friend of mine recently called out their rapist and they are involved in the
music scene and they just want to absolutely like, never see them again. They don't want
them to be at like shows; they don't want any of their friends to be friends with them, but,
like, when no friends are stepping up, what are you going to do?

The need for community support was a major thread in the groups. Most community members,

when pressed, discussed the need for friends and family to better understand what they were

going through; they expressed a need for emotional support systems that didn’t judge them or

further victimize them:

It could be non-governmental… it could just be community, friends, family, people

offering emotional support. Although I wouldn't consider that resources, technically, in
English, just support.

Like that's my first experience of resources. My first experience of a resource is a friend,

and if you're lucky you'll have a friend who understands and might be equipped or have
that education or just have that safe space for you.

I think it's really fear of emotional support that, to me, that seems the biggest thing to
work on. Because you know, a lot of times dealing with abuse and looking for resources,
there's a lot of barriers to the types of people who need and want to consider accessing,
so-called resources. And there's also a lot of fear, depending on you know, people who
typically access resources, people who don't. Fear of judgement, of the story being out,
like, I would love to see a way for there to be no more taboo in fear around just the
conversation.

A social support system can fall off. And they won't have a friend, sometimes they don't
have a friend at all. And their partner is mad when they talk to people

Peers & Community Networks

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In this way, the importance of peers and community networks became a primary focal

point of our conversations. Many expressed support for others who had tried to step in to

intervene, even if it was unsuccessful; others were sad they never intervened or that no one had

every stepped up for them. In response to the Latinx women who discussed trying to help her

sister escape abuse (noted above), one trans survivor said:

I think I noticed in your story about how you still kept on picking up the phone for your
sister even if she didn’t follow your advice in the beginning. And to me, seeing the
connection to the people you care about, even if you don’t agree, that she stayed in
something that she was suffering in, maybe eventually that helped her.

A queer Black trans woman talked about the shame and stigma that we frequently and readily

associate with straight cis women’s narratives of sexual violence:

You may or may not have relatives who could help you in this case, though, because I
think in many cases, just, many cases it feels like trans women who have experience
violence, one part is they’re ashamed of what’s happening and don’t want to share with
anybody. They really don’t have people, they don’t feel they can share this. They don’t
feel like there’s somebody to help. So, sometimes maybe we can be more aware and try
to recognize signs; people can know more easily when they have problems… Because we
[trans women] feel like “I did something wrong” or “It’s my fault”. And then I think it’s
important to have a group of people to tell you “It is not your fault,” you know? And it
happens to anybody. It can happen to anyone. So, we have to be around more for trans
women.

Listening also came through as an important aspect of giving or receiving “help”:

I think it´s also important to create a safe space. Um, like, for example, I think this is a
good way to start, just to have a group of people who try to be open-minded. Try to be
open-minded and try not to judge. Like, a monthly or bi-weekly meeting where we can
just go and listen to each other. We could say good things, we could say bad things,
whatever happens. Non-judgmental, you know, no judgement, I think that´s important.

I think that's something that's really important too, just listening. And just holding space
to listen because so many people… hear about abuse and jump to immediately, like, go
towards actions. You know like, okay did you call the police? You know, go to that
mode, but sometimes it's just important to just hold space and ask what people really
need as the next step. And a lot of times we jump to actions that aren't exactly in the
person's best interest who's telling that story.

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In one focus group, the conversation even turned to the issue of “accountability”, in the sense

that many thought having someone in their life to hold them to their goals, dreams, or just daily

needs was important:

…cultivating healthy relationships in our community, with accountability and consent

within your friendships is crucial. And if you're trying to advocate for someone that's in
an abusive situation, regardless of how, you have to use the correct model of healthy
relationships with them in your friendship. I've said to friends before that are in unhealthy
relationships, like, "If I treated you this way would you be my friend?" "Would you still
invite me over?" "Would you want to have dinner with me?" The answer is usually “no.”
But people tend to make excuses for people that they are intimate with.

Accountability partner! Super important! Really important. Even if it’s with like, smaller
things like: “Remember to take your medication.”

But, many LGBTQ+ folx also generally expressed feeling unprepared to handle the

conversations that inevitably take place within these friendships:

[It’s] very difficult unless there’s a meeting like we’re having now, so people can share
experience, so you’d have to have very cool friends. Which also, I believe is very hard to
maintain with this lifestyle, in these times here, very cool friendships like where you can
share stuff that’s happening.

I came here because I want to learn, and I want to just kind of figure out, what's
happening. It's scary. And also how to deal with every day and help others as well.

It can be pretty gnarly in the moment, so are you prepared? I can't say I've ever felt
prepared to give support that I've been asked to lend. So I guess a better question is like,
how can we prepare you? Or a different question, just like, how can we educate about
how it’s different for LGBTQ+ people? Like the ideas are different, the reasoning is
different, and it doesn't fit everyone.

Some brave community members even shared when it had gone “wrong”, in their minds, and

what they might have done differently had they been more prepared:

I guess I wish I would have “called in” instead of “calling out”. I wish I would have
asked them if they thought this was unhealthy; what they thought about their relationship;
ask them what they're feeling first. Instead of being like, "This is what I think." This is
what I've had to do.

I didn't handle it very well. I don't know if I handled it… I just like didn't know what I
was doing, I just knew it was bad. And I had that feeling in my gut that you talked about.

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That I needed to say something and I just said exactly what I felt. And sometimes that's
not the best thing you can do. Like congratulations, I'm a good friend, you're in a bad
relationship, now fix it.

So I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say, and I felt very overwhelmed.
And she was asking me for advice and I didn’t know what to say. And so I just admitted
that to her, and told her, and was honest with her, and then I offered to take her to
counseling services. I was there with her while she signed up for counseling and made
sure, and sat outside the group for the first meeting, and was there for her when she
talked to someone else. So just making sure I’m helping her through the process and that
she’s been going. But, honestly, I don’t know if it’s helping and I don’t think the therapist
is [queer] friendly. So, I don’t know, did I do the right thing? I’m not sure.

In many ways, the conversation around peer support and community networks flowed back into

a conversation about service providers and professional traumatic care needs. As one young,

genderqueer person described, it can be very emotionally traumatic for the friend attempting to

provide support—especially if they’re also a survivor. It was an emotionally closing to a focus

group session in which people had previously been expressing their desire to be able to provide

support for loved ones:

I just want to add one more thing, I have found this, and I've learned this the hard way,
from offering friends of mine help, if you are not capable of giving help don't do it. Do
not do it. There are a number of reasons for that, because you can exacerbate the
situation. I mean, if you are offering help, I would highly suggest, and this is what I'm
doing you can help yourself too. You make sure that you have something that you are
doing, that you can help yourself. Because there's a chance you're going to spread
yourself thin. And there are some things that are outside of your control. I mean there are
some things that you can't help. And I think recognizing and understanding that is an
integral part of the process. As far as I've been listening, if you're going to carry someone
else's stuff with you, and you don't have the time, or therapy, or something to deal with
that, there's something about carrying an emotional burden. It will destroy you.

Conclusion

As the narratives above detail, nearly all survivors reported that the level of awareness

regarding sexual violence, what it looks like, and importantly what to do about it within their

communities is limited. Survivors report specific difficulty in identifying abusive behavior, as

many of them had experienced other forms of violence from family and/or since a young age.

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Isolation--both figuratively, because the LGBTQ+ community in this Southern city is relatively

small, and literally because of living outside the city in rural areas--was described as central to

experiences of abuse, and many individuals discussed the feelings of shame and stigma that we

readily associate with heterosexual, cisgender women who have survived sexual violence. Many

survivors also reported that they largely did not attempt to or unsuccessfully accessed

mainstream services, due to concerns about homophobia, transphobia, and racism—or, again,

just generally because they were not sure if their experiences constituted the kind of violence

those service providers addressed. To help survivors of sexual violence in LGBTQ+

communities, many pointed to the importance of education, friendship and community networks

“outside the system,” resource sharing about non-heteronormative violence tactics, and holding

batterers accountable for their behavior within LGBTQ+ circles.

There are two key takeaways from these narratives. The first is that “resources” and

“education” constitute a wide range of possibilities. For some, resources meant help finding

alternative housing or a job; for others, it meant trans-inclusive therapy. For yet others, resources

meant a safe space to create art, dance, or be in community. Education was not simply referenced

as a formal type of training, received either in school (the “one day I hope we do this” idea) or

from an LGBTQ+ specific organization, but was also discussed in terms of safe spaces for

conversation, listening, questioning, and discussing with one another and survivors. In this way,

it’s important to LGBTQ+ organizations to understand the healthy relationships classes, which

provide community members with definitions for and examples of abuse tactics, is only one

piece of the puzzle. For a truly holistic provision of resources, we might also focus on

community conversations, which provide safe spaces for community members to share their own

ideas about what can and should be done to support survivors and end violence. Moreover, non-

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traditional healing options, like dancing, painting, move nights, trauma-informed yoga or

meditation, or even massage therapy, should be included as alternatives to institutionalized care.

For most survivors, though, the critical resource need was a supportive, understanding,

and genuinely knowledgeable peer support network or community. This is the second key

takeaway. Previous research confirms that most people disclose the violence they experience to a

friend, family member, or peer first (Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003; Orchowski &

Gidycz, 2012; Sabina & Ho, 2014). Some survivors discussed experiences where family or

friends were not helpful, or recounted their own friends’ inability to discuss experiencing

violence with a family that was already “struggling” with accepting an LGBTQ+ child, sibling

(etc.). However, many community members who came to the focus groups joined us because

they had either previously given bad advice, questioned their approaches to handling disclosures

of violence, didn’t know what they would say or do if it happened in the future, or, in one case,

had sent themselves into a deeper depression because they were unprepared to handle the needs

of another survivor of complex trauma. Knowing that rates of sexual violence are higher for

LGBTQ+ folx (Coston, 2017)—and thus rates of disclosure to LGBTQ+ peers will also be

higher—and that LGBTQ+ individuals are at higher risk for experiencing negative mental health

outcomes, such as anxiety and depression (Bostwick, Hughes, & Everett, 2015; Gorman,

Denney, Dowdy, & Meideros, 2015; Jorm, Korten, Rogers, Jacob & Christensen, 2002; Koh &

Ross, 2013; Veenstra, 2011)—thus, often violence is being disclosed to individuals already

juggling their own mental health needs—it is critically important that service providers and

community organizations also provide services to survivor support networks.

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