Domestic Violence in the LGBTQ Community

I was watching a television show today called “Greenleaf” and one of the main characters, named Zora, begin to suffer from domestic violence. It angered me so much because I never understood how you could abuse the person you claim to love. So I began doing some research ( yes, it bothered me that bad that I had to research it) on domestic violence in general, and then on the LGBTQ community. And to be honest I was shocked.

The National Violence Against Women survey found that 21.5 percent of men and 35.4 percent of women living with a same-sex partner experienced intimate-partner physical violence. The reason why I was surprised is because of the general and most believed stereotype of domestic violence is that domestic violence only occurs when a man abuses a woman psychically, but that is not true at all. Please understand that domestic violence, is any abuse, rather psychically, mentally, or emotionally targeted toward a partner regardless of the person’s sex.

With that being stated, the CDC’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey released that of the victims of domestic violence in the LGBTQ community consists of 43.8 percent for lesbians, 61.1 percent for bisexual women, and 35 percent for heterosexual women, 26 percent for gay men, 37.3 percent for bisexual men, and 29 percent for heterosexual men. The most victimized by domestic violence are bisexual women.

These numbers continue to rise, and must be stopped or at minimum slowed down. A relationship is supposed to be a partnership between two people that help each other reach their full potential. Anybody that does not fulfill that, is not worthy of your relations. Sometimes when we get into relationships, we tend to get to wrapped up in the person we are with, but it is so important that we do lose ourselves.

If you or anybody you know is struggling with domestic violence, below is a list of places that offer programs to help remove a person out of domestic violence.