Gender-Based Violence Against Transgender People in the United States: A Call for Research and Programming

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea L. Wirtz ◽  
Tonia C. Poteat ◽  
Mannat Malik ◽  
Nancy Glass

Gender-based violence (GBV) is an umbrella term for any harm that is perpetrated against a person’s will and that results from power inequalities based on gender roles. Most global estimates of GBV implicitly refer only to the experiences of cisgender, heterosexually identified women, which often comes at the exclusion of transgender and gender nonconforming (trans) populations. Those who perpetrate violence against trans populations often target gender nonconformity, gender expression or identity, and perceived sexual orientation and thus these forms of violence should be considered within broader discussions of GBV. Nascent epidemiologic research suggests a high burden of GBV among trans populations, with an estimated prevalence that ranges from 7% to 89% among trans populations and subpopulations. Further, 165 trans persons have been reported murdered in the United States between 2008 and 2016. GBV is associated with multiple poor health outcomes and has been broadly posited as a component of syndemics, a term used to describe an interaction of diseases with underlying social forces, concomitant with limited prevention and response programs. The interaction of social stigma, inadequate laws, and punitive policies as well as a lack of effective GBV programs limits access to and use of GBV prevention and response programs among trans populations. This commentary summarizes the current body of research on GBV among trans populations and highlights areas for future research, intervention, and policy.

Author(s):  
Katherine Martinez ◽  
Courtney McDonald

Gender-based violence refers to the violence that gendered individuals, typically women and girls, experience due to patriarchal systems of inequality which position woman and girls as objects of discipline and control. One patriarchal system, the nuclear family, is particularly prone to gender inequality and thus violence. This article engages in a theory-building exercise to explain the gendering of violence as it occurs within inter-sibling relationships. More specifically, it posits that inter-sibling violence serves as a mechanism of heteromasculine hegemony. The authors analysed the retrospective accounts of 31 non-binary and LGBTQ+ individuals’ experiences with inter-sibling violence, focusing on gender within the family in the United States. Data suggest that women and non-binary assigned female at birth (AFAB) individuals are at greater risk for inter-sibling violence than men, although those assigned male at birth (AMAB) may also be at risk if they exhibit subordinate masculinities in childhood. The study highlights how gender-based violence permeates throughout family relationships, including those between siblings.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Gender-based violence extends into sibling relationships.</li><br /><li>Experiences with inter-sibling violence differ in important ways for transgender and gender non-binary individuals.</li><br /><li>Inter-sibling violence is a gender-based violence and serves as a mechanism of hegemony.</li></ul>


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-298
Author(s):  
Maria N. Scaptura ◽  
Kaitlin M. Boyle

The current study aims to shed light on how masculinity threat and challenges from women translate into fantasies of mass and gender-based violence. These attitudes are evident among some self-proclaimed “incels,” who blame social liberalism, feminism, and sexually active men for their rejection from women. We developed a measure of “incel” traits, which was administered in an online self-report survey of 18- to 30-year-old heterosexual men in the United States. As hypothesized, stress in one’s inability to live up to norms of masculinity and endorsement of “incel” traits are associated with violent fantasies about rape and using powerful weapons against enemies.


Author(s):  
Rebecca S. Bigler ◽  
Lynn S. Liben

Morality and gender are intersecting realms of human thought and behavior. Reasoning and action at their intersection (e.g., views of women’s rights legislation) carry important consequences for societies, communities, and individual lives. In this chapter, the authors argue that children’s developing views of morality and gender reciprocally shape one another in important and underexplored ways. The chapter begins with a brief history of psychological theory and research at the intersection of morality and gender and suggests reasons for the historical failure to view gender attitudes through moral lenses. The authors then describe reasons for expecting morality to play an important role in shaping children’s developing gender attitudes and, reciprocally, for gender attitudes to play an important role in shaping children’s developing moral values. The authors next illustrate the importance and relevance of these ideas by discussing two topics at the center of contentious debate in the United States concerning ethical policy and practice: treatment of gender nonconformity and gender-segregated schooling. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110357
Author(s):  
Erin O’Callaghan ◽  
Veronica Shepp ◽  
Anne Kirkner ◽  
Katherine Lorenz

Higher education is not immune to the epidemic of sexual harassment in the United States, particularly sexual harassment of graduate workers. This is due largely to power differentials of status and income, as academia relies on low-wage work. While the literature shows sexual harassment is prevalent across disciplines, current work to address the problem does not account for graduate worker precarity. The graduate labor movement, which addresses precarity, is beginning to tackle sexual harassment. We review how the labor and anti-gender-based violence movements in higher education should come together to prevent sexual harassment, presenting recommendations for structural changes to academia.


In the midst of unprecedented attention to gender-based violence (GBV) globally, prompted in part by the #MeToo movement, this book provides a new analysis of how higher education cultures can be transformed. It offers reflections from faculty, staff, and students about how change has happened and could happen on their campuses in ways that go beyond implementation of programs and policies. Building on what is already known from decades of scholarship and practice in the United States, and more recent attention elsewhere, this book provides an interdisciplinary, international overview of attempts to transform higher education cultures to eradicate GBV. Change happens because people act, usually with others. At the heart of transformative efforts lie collaborations between faculty, staff, students, activists, and community organizations. The contributors to the book reflect on what makes for constructive, effective collaborations and how to avoid the common mistakes in working with others to end GBV. They consider what has worked to challenge the reluctance—or outright hostility—they have encountered in their work against GBV and how their collaborations have succeeded in transforming the ways GBV is considered and dealt with. The chapters focus on experiences in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland, France, and India to examine different approaches to tackling GBV in higher education. They reveal the cultural variations in which GBV occurs as well as the similarities across cultures. Together, they demonstrate that, to make higher education a safe environment for all, nothing short of a transformation is required.


Author(s):  
Shannon Gilreath

Transgender people have a complicated history in U.S. law and policy. Once thought of as a symptom of homosexuality, gender nonconformity has long been the subject of social disapprobation and legal sanction, including criminalization. Beginning in the 1950s, an emergent interest by the medical community in individuals suffering from “gender dysphoria” precipitated an identity politics primarily organized around a goal of access to competent medical care and treatment for transsexual individuals. In ways both significant and ironic, this medicalization both promoted a binary ideology of gender, most obvious in concepts like male-to-female or female-to-male transsexualism, and created space for more transformative concepts of gender fluidity and transgender identity to emerge. Long conceptualized as a kind of subsidiary of the gay and lesbian rights movement in the United States, a status that entailed considerable turmoil, the transgender movement, especially since the 1990s, has emerged as a vocal and relatively effective rights lobby in its own right. The advent of the Trump administration presents a pivotal moment that will likely test not only the durability of recent policy gains but also whether those gains can be expanded in any significant measure.


2019 ◽  
pp. 152483801988173
Author(s):  
L. B. Klein ◽  
Sandra L. Martin

Increased attention to Title IX and the #MeToo movement has led to more interest in developing strategies to prevent forms of gender-based violence beyond acquaintance rape, including sexual harassment (SH). This study reviewed the extant literature published since 2000 on SH of college/university students ( n = 24) to determine (a) study methods, (b) sample sociodemographic characteristics, (c) prevalence, (d) risk and protective factors, and (e) consequences of campus SH. These studies shared the view that overall SH rates are high, but their findings were difficult to cross-evaluate due to variations in their study designs. Generally, unwanted sexual attention and gender harassment were more commonly experienced in campus SH occurrences than sexual coercion. Findings indicated that being White, a woman, or a sexual minority increased a student’s likelihood of experiencing SH while at a college/university. Student SH survivors rarely filed official reports but often faced a variety of mental and physical health consequences. Women of color experienced lower rates of SH but more severe consequences in the aftermath. This review concludes by detailing several implications for future research, as well as possible campus SH prevention, intervention, and policy protocols.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (139) ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Jess T. Dugan ◽  
Vanessa Fabbre

Abstract For over five years, photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States creating To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults. Seeking subjects whose lived experiences exist at the complex intersections of gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and geographic location, they documented the life stories of this important but largely underrepresented group of older adults. The resulting photographs and interviews provide a nuanced view into the struggles and joys of growing older as a transgender person and offer a poignant reflection on what it means to live authentically despite seemingly insurmountable odds.


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