More Myths!

So this week in class we were to discuss more myths and truths! Yay!

We were asked to research a particular myth that we have heard or have thought. I chose to research a myth of violence in homosexual relationships.

I've heard that some people believe that DV is more common in heterosexual relationships. Myth or truth?

I found some great statistics on the Stansilus' Women's Center website (ttp://hwcstan.squarespace.com/lgbt/2010/5/28/ten-myths-regarding-domestic-violence-in-same-sex-relationsh.html)

Here it says that about 23 to 25 % of same-sex relationships experience DV. This is actually about he same ratio as DV in heterosexual relationships! In fact, about 1 in 4 gay men and about 1 in 4 gay women have experienced domestic violence by these statistics.

It's a funny myth once I begin to think about it. What makes people in same-sex relationships any less violent than their heterosexual counterparts? Nothing, because same-sex couples are just as likely to experience DV as heterosexual couples.


This myth is BUSTED!!!!


However, now my questions lead to Transgender Violence.

A few years ago Caityln from MTV's "The Real World" Came to the UI campus to speak. Holy crap it was an AMAZING speech! She's so funny and really honest and I think that really helped the crowd pay attention to her story and the overall message she was bringing us. My gushing aside, she brought up an interesting fact about how a lot of times people who are transgendered expereince frequent dating violence. A lot of times MTF (Males to Females) or FTM's (Female to males) are in fear that if they tell their significant other (who often times identify as straight) that they might react with violence. Caityln affirms this. However, I wanted to look into the research a little bit more on this topic.

What I found was an article in the jounral of "Agression and Violent Behavior". This research done by self report survey's shows that 69% of MTFs reported of being a victim of rape. 30% of FTMs reported a being a victim of rape. Quite a difference right? I believe that a part of this could be our patriarchial society in action. In our society men are "supposed to be" masculine and when they are not they are "deviant". These men who are labeled deviant in our society are then target of perpetrators out to assert their own masculinities and power. We talked about this more in my Soc of Gender class and I can't remember some of the other reasons for this. If they come to me later I'll post them.

Anyways, on to more statistics. Including both MTFs and FTMs about 50% reported unwanted sexual activity and 59% reported they were vicitims of rape. That is over half!!! This study delves into the reasons the victims percieved were their perpetrators motives. 43% of victims said the violence was due to the perpetrators homophobia while 35% said is it was the perpetrators Transphobia.

While these statistics apply to sexual assualt in general we can maybe get a glimpse into how this may apply to transgender domestic violence. As Caitlyn pointed out, a lot of times these people are victimized by their significant others. From what I know about rape from other classes, usually rapists know their victims. This leads me to assume that many of these 59% of transgendered victims of rape have been raped by their significant others.

So there's some pretty heavy stuff we talked about today. If you all have any questions or comments please send them to me! I'd love to talk with you all about this issues!


* Also as a side note the term Transgendered is an umbrella term for many gender identities. I talked about MTFs and FTMs above, but that does not mean all transgendered people are FTMs and MTFs. There are those that are androgynous, gender queer, two-spirited, and so on and so forth. I really urge those of you who are interested to check out genderfork.com . They have pictures, thoughts, articles, and movies from individuals who identify as transgendered. It's a great start to wrap ones head around the great diversity we have in the transgendered community.

Anyway, I think I've written enough today.




Ciao!