Domestic Violence in the LGBT Community
Domestic Violence in the LGBT Community
- Betty Jo BarrettBetty Jo BarrettBetty Jo Barrett (MSSW, PhD) is an Associate Professor of Social Work and Women’s Studies at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She received her doctoral degree in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2006. Dr. Barrett specializes in the study of intimate partner violence, with a particular interest in violence perpetrated against those in socially, economically, and racially diverse populations. She is currently conducting research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) investigating variations in intimate partner violence survivors’ help seeking behaviors and interactions with police over a ten year period in Canada.
Summary
Since the mid 1980s, a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature has examined the existence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. Collectively, this research has suggested that IPV in rainbow communities occurs at rates comparable to those documented among heterosexual populations and results in similar detrimental psychological, social, and physical consequences for victims. Importantly, however, this work has also highlighted myriad ways in which the social and structural marginalization of gender and sexual minority populations create unique vulnerabilities for IPV that are not shared by cissexual and heterosexual individuals. This entry provides an overview of this scholarship to inform strength-based social work practice with and for LGBT survivors of domestic violence at the macro, mezzo, and micro levels.
Keywords
Subjects
- Couples and Families
- Criminal Justice
- Gender and Sexuality
- Human Behavior
