When issues of domestic violence surface the on Internet and social media, one rarely hears of its devastating affects on transgender individuals. For a long time, our culture, which has put very little focus on domestic violence issues in general, has forgotten to bring transgender issues into our discussion of abuse. When thinking about domestic abuse there tends to be a stereotypical picture that comes to mind: woman and abuser (male). She is often deemed the victim (survivor is the better terminology) and her partner, almost exclusively depicted as a man, is holding his fist above the bruised and beaten body. This image, though frightening and heartbreaking, is overly used and offers up only a limited lens into what domestic abuse looks like and who it affects.

Domestic abuse and violence is something that affects every person of every gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, nationality, religion and so on. But, disproportionately, we see the same white, straight, cisgender-bodied women representing the survivors of domestic abuse. What happens when we dive into the reality of domestic abuse is that the numbers aren’t inclusive and representative for transgender individuals. According to the Partnership Against Domestic Violence, every nine seconds a woman is battered in the United States; and around the world, one in four women has been coerced into sex, beaten, or harassed. Though these numbers are frightening, they tend to leave out the transgender community in which there has been little research. According to a 2011 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equity (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), one in five trans people have experienced domestic violence at home for their nonconforming gender identities.

It is time to stop acting like domestic violence and abuse don’t affect everyone, and it’s time to start looking at the bodies who are being left out of the statistics and the media limelight. Domestic violence for transgender individuals is not always the same as it is for their cisgender counterparts. Violence against gender-nonconforming individuals often starts with the people they love most. Their nonconformity into strict gender norms is often used against them and leads to domestic violence that can reach far beyond physical abuse. Because abuse became so normal in relationships with transgender people, along with the lack of resources that explain how domestic abuse affects these individuals, theirs tends to be a continuing of the abuse because it has become so normalized. If transgender people have been surrounded by physical and emotional abuse for extended periods, and relationship development is based on systems of abuse, survivors can see their situations as part of a normal “healthy” relationship.

Domestic abuse for transgender people can look very different than for their cisgender brothers and sisters. Emotional abuse is one of the most common forms of abuse and can easily be normalized in any relationship. But, abusers can use their partner’s gender identity as a tactic to keep them “in line,” saying things like “you’re not a real man/woman,” “no one will want f*ck someone like you,” and/or misusing pronouns or calling them “it.” This form of emotional abuse is all too real within the transgender community and has often, as noted above, become a normalized form of abuse in relationships. Abusers will use power tactics that are not always as common within cisgender couples i.e. exploiting and patrolling their gender expression via hiding imperative items of clothing like binders and wigs. Domestic abuse isn’t going to be as clear-cut in some of these situations because of tactics like these, but it is imperative to understand that it happens to bodies that are not cisgender.

Transgender people have been continuously left out of the conversation of domestic violence and domestic abuse. Their statistics have been overlooked and options for them to seek out help i.e. center’s and shelters are limited because of the lack of knowledge of how domestic violence affects them. It can be very difficult for trans individuals to find a support system that is going to value their lives over their gender nonconformity. Let’s continue this conversation and stop the stigma when talking about domestic abuse within the LGBTQ+ community. Domestic abuse happens to all bodies, no matter their race, sexual orientation, gender, or gender expression.