UCLA Study Finds Bisexual Women and Gay Men Suffer Higher Rates of Domestic Violence

ilga.org

Bisexual women and gay men face higher rates of domestic violence, the Williams Institute, a UCLA gay think thank, has reported.

"Binge drinking and a history of psychological distress predicted intimate partner violence," a UCLA press statement reads, "but these factors did not explain disparities between bisexual and heterosexual women or between gay and heterosexual men."

L.A. Weekly recently addressed the state of health and well-being among gay men in the cover story "Gay Happiness, the New Frontier."

The domestic violence findings were released in a new report by Naomi G. Goldberg and Ilan H. Meyer, senior scholar for public policy at the Williams Institute at UCLA. The study was published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

"As Congress considers reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and we reflect on Domestic Violence Awareness Month," Goldberg says in press release, "our report's findings highlight that these issues also impact the LGBT community."

The key findings include:

"Bisexual women had elevated risks of experiencing intimate partner violence compared with heterosexual women, lesbians and women who have sex with women over the course of the lives and in the past year. But, significantly, in 95 percent of intimate partner violence annual incidents reported by bisexual women, the perpetrator was a male intimate partner, indicating that the violence occurred outside a same-sex relationship."

And...

"Gay men had elevated risk of experiencing intimate partner violence compared with heterosexual and bisexual men, and men who have sex with men but do not identify as gay or bisexual. Almost all (97 percent) of the annual incidents of intimate partner violence incidents occurring to male victims involved a male intimate partner."

Reasons for the higher rates are unclear, researchers said. In addition, previous studies had found that domestic violence rates among same-sex relationships and heterosexual relationships were similar. Meyer and Goldberg say their study was "more accurate."

Read the full UCLA report.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.

Tags:

bisexual women, domestic violence, Gay Happiness, gay men, Ilan Meyer, Patrick Range McDonald, UCLA, Williams Institute

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normajeanalmodovar

Patrick, would this be the 'dark side' of homosexuality?

juliet.rosenthal

@normajeanalmodovar No. Since the study states that 95% of bisexual women experience domestic violence from male perpetrators, and domestic violence among gay men made 97% of cases involving a male victim.

Sounds more like the dark side of dating men. Of course, characterizing it that would be oversimplifying.

I imagine that gay men have it hardest not just due to the stigma against gay people, but a stigma against male victims of domestic violence. Police are less likely to intervene, domestic violence shelters are less willing to accept males.

That said, there are strong correlations between domestic violence and low socioeconomic status, unemployment, and drug/alcohol abuse. LGBT people are over-represented in all of those categories: about 40% of homeless teens are LGBT, recent studies indicate that gay men are more likely to pass over in employment opportunities, LGBT people command lower salaries than the heterosexual counterparts, and so on. Additionally, there are few safe spaces for LGBT people to mingle outside of bars, and I believe that a major factor (among many) which cause increased drug and alcohol use in the community.

Unfortunately, people use studies like this to "prove" that being gay is wrong or objectionable. That's not the case. The truth is that we're seeing a product of stigma which affects not just LGBT people, but all other minority groups like black and latino couples.

normajeanalmodovar

@juliet.rosenthal I was being facetious... I am a bi-sexual woman myself. Never encountered domestic violence though- I've been happily married to a man for 36 years. I was referencing earlier articles by Patrick in which he claimed that it was because of the dark side of sex work that led to a murder (rather than the dark side of human beings which led to jealousy and murder). Which could also be said of marriage and all other relationships... there is a dark side to all human relationships, period. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation OR participation in sex work. The very same arguments you stated above could also apply to sex work and sex workers. There are ideologically biased researchers who conduct unethical studies to promote their abolitionist agenda. Hopefully you will support sex worker rights as vigorously as you defend gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender rights. After all, many of us sex workers are also glbts, and we are also very stigmatized.