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Domestic Violence in the Lesbian Community - Part I - Page 2

© Debra L. Stang

This already bad situation can be made even worse if the community decides to claim neutrality and turn a blind eye to the abuse survivor’s dilemma. A friend of mine, for instance, went to a “womon-safe” dance on private property and found herself face to face with the woman who had beaten and psychologically tortured her for three years. When she approached the dance organizers, they shrugged off her concerns. “It’s not like she’s going to do anything to you here,” one of them said. “But if she were a male batterer, you’d make her leave!” my friend protested and was told, vaguely, “That’s different.”

Pressure to keep problems “inside the community.” In the ground-breaking book, Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering (edited by Kerry Lobel and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Lesbian Task Force, 1986), one contributor recounts how she was scolded by friends after she decided to press charges against her abusive lover. “We in the lesbian community take care of our own,” she was told. Even if they are not explicitly given this message, many abused lesbians fear that if they file a police report or press charges, they are somehow betraying the lesbian community. “So many people hate us anyway,” one woman said to me. “I just feel like I’m giving them ammunition if I go public about what my lover did.”

Myths about women and violence. “Women don’t abuse.” “Catfights are exciting—nobody really gets hurt.” “Relationships between women are egalitarian by nature, so there’s no such thing as lesbian domestic violence.” These myths and others like them are dangerous to lesbians in abusive relationships. They keep both the community at large, as well as the lesbigay community, from responding effectively to the crime of domestic violence. For instance, a police officer who sees any violence between women as a “catfight” or “mutual battering” will be unlikely to help a battered lesbian file a police report or press charges against her abuser; a leader in the lesbian community who believes women are gentle by nature and therefore do not abuse will be unlikely to lead the way in providing “safe space” for battered lesbians.

Homophobia. Homophobia operates in many insidious ways to keep lesbian victims of domestic violence attached to their abusers. Police, prosecutors, and social service agencies may not know how to respond to same-sex domestic violence. They may ignore complaints of abuse, or worse, they may treat the victim with scorn or derision. In some parts of the country, local law enforcement has such a bad reputation for homophobia that a victim may be reluctant to call the police for fear her lover will be hurt or killed while in police custody.

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