LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence in 2020

Domestic violence reports in the United States increased in 2020 in correlation with COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, according to an article published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

This trend is alarming for the LGTBQ community as they are more likely to experience domestic violence, said LGBTQ advocates.

“LGBT survivors of this type of violence are put into these situations because power and control differ more than in cisgender or straight relationships,” said Brooke Lindley, a field manager for Equality Michigan, an LGBTQ political advocacy organization.

“Power and control can look a bunch of different ways, but when you’re specifically talking about a community of people who have always been viewed as less than, it’s so much easier to have more power over people who are already considered ‘other,’” said Lindley. “Transgender victims experience hate crimes and physical violence at a greater rate.”

Anti-transgender hate crimes increased in the U.S. by 20% in 2019 compared to 2018, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report released last November.

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the problems marginalized communities experience and that trans women are one of the most marginalized groups within the U.S., said advocates.

“Trans women more so are financially reliant on a live-in partner, and that can trap people in unsafe domestic situations,” said Morgan Doherty, a coordinator for the LGBT Resource Center at Michigan State University.

“Because of the financial crisis accompanying the pandemic, incidences of domestic violence have increased across the board, and trans people are less likely to have another place to go,” said Doherty.

Trans people often find it difficult to reach out to domestic violence services, said Doherty.

At least 37 transgender people were murdered in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group. That is the highest number of confirmed trans homicides the Campaign has ever recorded.

Not everyone agrees violence against trans women has increased. Some believe this violence has always been underreported.

“I challenge the statistics that say there’s been an uptick in violence,” said Jazz McKinney, the interim director for the Grand Rapids Pride Center.

“Was there really an uptick or is it just that it’s being reported more? Crimes against LGBTQ people are typically underreported,” said McKinney.

Any data that indicates an increase in violence against LGBTQ people can only account for reported incidents, they said. “But even then, we know there’s a lot more murders that are happening.”

They went on to state how it can be very difficult for trans people to find steady work that allows them to freely express themselves. Additionally, trans people have a more difficult time finding stable housing, which McKinney argued makes them especially vulnerable to abuse.

Between 31% and 50% of trans people in the U.S. will experience intimate partner violence, according to a 2015 report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Intimate partner violence is defined to include physical and sexual violence, as well as stalking and psychological aggression.

The ability of LGBTQ people to report incidents of violence can further be complicated by current discrimination laws in Michigan.

“There’s a whole bunch of missing components in existing Michigan law that we can update to provide stability to a community that disproportionately experiences hardships,” said Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield.

“We need to put into our existing hate crimes statute, protections so that a trans person can report a hate crime and be treated seriously about it,” said Moss.

Michigan law ought to provide a safety net to protect trans people in domestically abusive environments, said Moss.

Moss went on to cite difficulties finding stable employment and housing, particularly during a pandemic, as contributing to the unstable environments trans people live in.

“When you don’t have stability in your employment, and when you don’t have stability in your housing and you don’t have stability in picking out services, you really do live in a different world than everybody else,” said Moss.

“When you can be fired without notice, when you can be kicked out of your house just because somebody doesn’t like who you are, it creates a lot of stressors for somebody and it puts them in unstable environments.”

Moss suggested the inclusion of a gender-identity category into Mich. civil rights law could help to improve the housing and working conditions of trans people.

The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment and housing for marginalized communities in Michigan, however this act does not provide protection from discrimination on the basis of gender-identity or sexual orientation.

“Creating opportunities through amending the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act would go a long way to address the violence that trans women, and specifically trans women of color, have to endure,” said Moss. “We have been advocating as a community for 30-plus years to add sexual-orientation and gender-identity to the existing protected classes.”

Further amendments to legally protect LGBTQ people from employment and housing discrimination would help to improve peoples’ circumstances, said Moss.