By: Connie Woodring
Focusing on homophobia and its violent consequences against gays by heterosexuals has been important for several decades, but violence within the gay community itself has been given much less attention. This article hopes to shed some light on the subject.
When one considers the high incidence of battering in gay relationships, one wonders if there are more love crimes than hate crimes in this population. David Island and Patrick Letellier, co-authors of Men Who Beat Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence, note that the likelihood of homosexuals being involved in domestic violence is twice what it is for heterosexual couples and that domestic violence is a primary health risk for homosexuals, ranking only behind AIDS for males, cancer for females and drug abuse for both.[1]
Obviously, violence against homosexuals is not confined to heterosexual perpetrators. Domestic violence also occurs in the gay community, but evidence of it is only beginning to be studied because statistics on gay and lesbian domestic violence have only been collected since 1987.
Discussing violence in the lesbian community has been, until recently, politically incorrect because many feminists have believed women are not violent unless really pushed and that they certainly would not raise a fist to their sisters. However, in her 1992 book, Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships, Claire Renzetti notes that 47% of lesbian couples studied had experienced violent episodes,[2] and in 1996 a San Francisco study of six major U.S. cities found that violence occurs in 25-35% of all same sex relationships.[3]