A Feminist History of Violence against Women and the LGBTQIA+ Community in Chile, 1964–2018

Associations between state-level restorative justice policies and mental health among women survivors of intimate partner violence

“There's no place like home”: Examining the associations between state eviction defense protections and indicators of biopsychosocial stress among survivors of intimate partner violence

Survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault (SA) faced increased violence, new safety risks, and reduced services access in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. IPV and SA service providers have a critical role in safety planning and advocacy with survivors; however their patterns of working were dramatically impacted by changes brought on by the pandemic. Little is known about safety planning strategies and service adaptations employed in this context. Through semi-structured interviews with 33 service providers from across the United States, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of victim service agency staff with IPV and SA survivor safety and safety planning from March to December 2020. Qualitative data were analyzed using conventional content analysis. Four overarching themes related to survivor safety and safety planning emerged, including (1) "The violence is more severe, it's more escalated," describing an increase in the severity and frequency of violence; (2) "Perpetrating the violence through [technology]," describing a specific surge in technology based abuse (TBA) as the world shifted to virtual communication to facilitate social distancing; (3) "COVID-19 is now a tool in their toolbox," describing the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and health guidance as a life generated risk that abusive partners used to further control and isolate their partner; and (4) "You just get real crafty," highlighting the wide range of "work-arounds" and safety planning adaptations employed by victim service professionals trying to maintain services in a disrupted environment and in the face of evolving safety risks and increasing violence severity. These findings highlight the safety and safety planning challenges encountered as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded and the many creative strategies employed by service providers to adapt in the moment.

Mental Health Conditions and Utilisation of Mental Health Services by Survivors of Physical Intimate Partner Violence in Portugal: Results from the WHO World Mental Health Survey

BackgroundTransgender (trans) people experience high rates of sexual assault (SA) and intimate partner violence (IPV) and seldom receive the care and supports they need post-victimization. However, there is little to no research that aids in the development or improvement of related interventions. We undertook a study to build a novel Canadian research agenda on SA/IPV against trans people to guide future work and address these profound gaps in knowledge.MethodsGuided by the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method for research priority-setting, we developed and circulated two consecutive surveys to a multi-stakeholder group of government decision makers; mental health, health and social service providers, researchers and trans communities, among others, who proposed research questions related to preventing and addressing SA/IPV against trans persons. The initial survey launched March 2021 garnered responses from 213 stakeholders. These items were cleaned and collated into 20 final questions that fell within seven thematic areas. The refined research questions were evaluated in August 2021 on predefined criteria for answerability, feasibility, impact and equity by 79 of 95 survey 1 respondents who agreed to participate in the second survey (response rate = 83.2%). The questions were ranked using a research priority score calculated by dividing the sum of all the answers for each question across the four criteria by the number of answers received.ResultsAll questions were highly rated on each individual criterion and each had an overall research priority score of above 80%, with the most highly ranked question falling within the theme, “improving quality and implementation of education and training: How can training (e.g., for university/college students, educators, nurses, physicians, social workers, police, lawyers, security guards) be improved to better support trans survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence?”.ConclusionsThese questions form Canada’s first research agenda on SA/IPV against trans people. Together, they reflect the insights of stakeholder groups who have been historically excluded from research priority-setting processes and will guide future and much-needed work on the topic. Actionable information on preventing and addressing SA/IPV against trans persons will help reduce negative outcomes associated with being victimized.

A Systematic Review of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Epidemiology and Health Outcomes in Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals

Intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors often report histories of childhood maltreatment, yet the unique contributions of childhood maltreatment on IPV survivors' distinct posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms remain inadequately understood. Using interview and self-report measures, we examined IPV as a potential mediator of the association between childhood maltreatment and severity of PTSD symptom clusters (reexperiencing, avoidance, numbing, and hyperarousal) among a sample of 425 women seeking help for recent IPV. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that while both childhood maltreatment and IPV were both positively associated with PTSD symptom clusters, IPV did not mediate the association between childhood maltreatment and severity of PTSD symptom clusters among acute IPV survivors. Childhood maltreatment has persistent effects on the PTSD symptoms of IPV survivors, suggesting that child maltreatment may need to be addressed in addition to IPV during PTSD treatment.

In my article in Radical History Review 138, “The Very Quintessence of Persecution: Queer Anti-Fascism in 1970s Western Europe,” I argued that “transgender and gender-nonconforming people and cisgender lesbians” led the way within 1970s European LGBT+ movements in connecting queer liberation, anti-fascism, and anticapitalism, and developing what I argue was a uniquely queer anti-fascism.1 I would like to clarify after publication that this was also the case for West Germany’s Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW). On page 69 of my article, I referred to HAW queer anti-fascists as “trans and cis lesbian feminists,” “lesbians and trans people,” and “trans and cis feminists.”2 I intended to include gender-nonconforming activists in these formulations (within a broad notion of trans), but I have since received feedback that my formulation was confusing and led some to believe I was calling the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin’s Feminist Group (Femnistengruppe) a transgender women’s group or a cisgender lesbian’s group, neither of which would be accurate.The Feminist Group is an example of how gender-nonconforming queers led the way, along with transgender women and cisgender lesbians, in developing queer anti-fascism within HAW and in other European queer movements. The Feminist Group was founded as an organizing and social space for gender-nonconforming femmes who embraced revolutionary Marxism and reclaimed the German term Tunten for themselves. Tunten is historically a German slur, similar to English words such as sissy, used against effeminate queers. It connotes that the person being verbally attacked is specifically an effeminate man and is therefore usually used against gay men and as a transphobic slur against trans women and non-binary people. Members of the Feminist Group wore femme clothes and took femme names but most did not identify as trans women at this time. That does not say or mean anything about how they may have identified later. It is of course possible that some may have later come out or identified as trans women, trans*, non-binary, genderfluid, or another gender identity. This question is beyond the scope of my research here, but the Feminist Group itself was not founded as a trans women’s group. The Feminist Group was also not a cis lesbian group. Cis lesbians mostly, but not exclusively, organized within the HAW Women’s Group (Frauengruppe).3The members of the Feminist Group saw their own femme gender presentation as a challenge to bourgeois morality and therefore capitalism itself because they argued that fixed gender roles were a product, at least in part, of heteropatriarchal capitalism. They rejected gender roles and expectations all together in a way that they understood to be revolutionary and confrontational.4 They were not the only group where queer anti-fascists organized within HAW. Cis lesbian anti-fascists organized within the Women’s Group before queer socialists and intersectional activists were pushed out, and HAW’s explicitly revolutionary communist political position meant that queer anti-fascism was a part of discussions at regular plenary and group meetings at least before the cis male majority moved the organization away from political radicalness in the mid-1970s.Defining the gender and sexual identities of historical queer groups is never simple. Transgender studies problematizes rigid definitions of gender and distinctions between transsexuality, gender nonconformity, and gender variance today and in the past.5 I understand the members of the Feminist Group to be gender nonconforming, and in this paragraph on page 69 of my article, I attempted to include them under the umbrella of “trans” in line with what Susan Stryker has called “transgender phenomena,” which she has used to get at diverse gender practices including “transsexuality and crossdressing, some aspects of intersexuality and homosexuality, cross-cultural and historical investigations of human gender diversity, [and] myriad specific subcultural expressions of ‘gender atypictality.’”6 However, I regret my formulation here because it caused confusion and was out of step with the relatively clearer formulation I had used in my introduction and elsewhere (“transgender and gender non-conforming people and cisgender lesbians”7) and which I further defined in endnote 4 where I clarified that “transgender, lesbian, and gender-nonconforming are not exclusive terms. The reference highlights the contributions of overlapping identities marginalized within the LGBT+ movement.”8

Our study was conducted to estimate intimate partner violence (IPV) prevalence and associated factors among trans and cisgender women at risk of or living with HIV during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A cross-sectional study was conducted between May and August 2020 through telephone surveys with cisgender and trans women enrolled in two cohort studies in Rio de Janeiro. We assessed IPV employing the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale during the initial months of shelter-in-place ordinances. Regression models evaluated the factors associated with IPV for each population. We surveyed 796 women, and 341 participants (47.78%) were eligible and included in the current analysis. All cisgender women and 41 (64.06%) trans women were living with HIV. Overall IPV prevalence was 27.86% (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 23.34-32.88). IPV was 63% higher among trans women than among cisgender women (prevalence ratio 1.63, 95% CI 1.14-2.34, p=0.008). Loneliness was significantly associated with IPV in both groups. Younger age and binge drinking were associated with IPV prevalence among trans women. For cisgender women, IPV was associated with withdrawal of cash transfer programs during the shelter-in-place. Trans women experienced significantly more IPV than cisgender women in the early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic. Plans to prevent and address violence against cisgender and trans women, especially those with heightened vulnerability that may be associated with living with HIV, are needed in public health planning for future pandemics.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare perspectives on economic empowerment in the context of employment seeking among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors and service providers specializing in IPV-related trauma. This study addressed the following question is: How do employment-seeking IPV survivors and service providers conceptualize and understand empowerment? Insights into how each group conceives of economic empowerment and its attainment following IPV experiences can help to inform an effective service curriculum that can be used to facilitate optimal employment outcomes among survivors. Methods: A constructivist grounded theory method was used to develop a theoretical framework for conceptualizing how economic empowerment is understood by employment-seeking survivors of IPV, and IPV service providers. Twenty-six participants were recruited (survivors, n = 16; service providers, n = 10) in a large northeastern U.S. city. Interview questions focused on how IPV survivors and service providers identify and conceptualize economic empowerment, and how support services respond to survivors’ needs around empowerment, particularly through help with employment seeking. Results: Data were coded and analyzed following data analysis stages: (a) initial coding; (b) constant comparison; and, (c) focused coding. Three main themes emerged from the narrative data: (1) structural characteristics shape individual experiences and perspectives of empowerment; (2) peer support as an integral component to empowerment; and (3) employment attainment as economic empowerment. Though perspectives on economic empowerment were often aligned, some key differences emerged. Whereas providers tended toward a more restricted, micro-level view of empowerment as primarily an attribute of the individual, survivors were inclined toward a structuralist perspective that considers how individuals’ experiences of empowerment are shaped by broader, institutional-level factors. Conclusions: Findings from this study build on prior research on the experiences of IPV survivors. The focus on experiences of empowerment in the context of employment-seeking can inform work on building more effective support services for survivors that avoid reductionist approaches that could be perceived by survivors as “victim-blaming” by incorporating a sensitivity to empowerment as derived from structural factors that shape individual experience.

Immigrant women are vulnerable to intimate partner violence (IPV), and differences in immigration history, language, and culture impact their trauma responses. Although Chinese are the largest Asian immigrant subgroup in the U.S., little IPV research has specifically focused on this population. Therefore, we aimed to gain a better understanding of help-seeking experiences of Chinese immigrant women who had IPV. Twenty female Chinese immigrant survivors of recent IPV completed a Mandarin-language qualitative phone interview about their IPV experiences, help-seeking behaviors, and barriers to services. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analyses. Women in our sample relied on family, friends, and self-help strategies to cope with IPV. They experienced feelings of shame, stigma, and "losing face," and had little social support. They also faced significant sociocultural and immigration-specific problems with formal services (e.g., culturally incongruent therapists, language, financial and transportation barriers, concerns about partner's reputation and legal status), lacked knowledge about available services, and rarely engaged with them. Abused Chinese immigrant women may be exceptionally isolated, and culturally specific barriers may substantially impact both their understanding of their IPV experiences and their use of services. Practitioners need training and support to engage survivors in culturally competent ways. While safety planning and other formal IPV services are critical to safety and trauma recovery, these survivors underutilize them, and community outreach is needed to U.S. Chinese communities to raise awareness regarding available IPV resources and services. Finally, research is needed to develop and test culturally competent, evidence-based interventions for this isolated and vulnerable population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Training healthcare providers to respond to intimate partner violence against women

Objectives:The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated intimate partner violence and abuse. Incidents of intimate partner violence and abuse have increased as a result of household tensions due to enforced coexistence (multiple national lockdowns and working from home practices), economic stress related to loss of income, the disruption of social and protective networks and the decreased access to support services. This study aimed to understand how female survivors of parental intimate partner violence and abuse have experienced the adapted multi-agency response to intimate partner violence and abuse during the pandemic and consider learning from remote and hybrid working to influence future support.Method:This study adopted a qualitative research design, utilizing semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Data collection took place between March and September 2021. In total, 17 female survivors of intimate partner violence and abuse took part in the project; we conducted the semi-structured interviews via telephone (n = 9) and conducted an online focus group (n = 8).Results:Findings identified that services for those experiencing intimate partner violence and abuse need to be innovative, flexible and adaptable and ‘reach out’ to survivors rather than waiting for survivors to ‘reach in’ and ask for support. Findings show that the digital space highlights ‘missed opportunities’ for engagement with both professionals and peers and the potential for digital poverty is a key implication, which risks entrenching existing inequalities.Conclusion:In-depth consideration needs to be given to the design, delivery and evaluation of online interventions and provision of support to improve access and acceptability of services, maximize their effectiveness and to support the safety of survivors.

Intimate Partner Violence and the Pediatric Electronic Health Record: A Qualitative Study.

Gender inequitable beliefs, blaming attitudes, externalised and internalised stigma are commonly recognised barriers for intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors seeking help. However, the measurement of IPV stigma, its associations with inequitable gender beliefs and impacts on survivor disclosure, help-seeking behaviours, and mental health outcomes remain understudied. We explored women's agreement with statements about gendered power dynamics and violence in intimate heterosexual relationships, before identifying and psychometrically testing scales derived for measuring community norms and beliefs underlying stigma to IPV. We used data from a nationally representative sample of 596 women living in Botswana. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) occurred with responses of IPV survivors, and involved items from the Community Ideas about Gender Relations, Community Ideas about Rape, and Gender Equitable Women Scales. For each EFA identified scale, we estimated reliability (McDonald's omega (ω)) and correlation with psychosocial outcomes related to IPV stigma. Among IPV survivors, we also considered whether survivors had disclosed their experience of abuse to others prior to the interview. Some 40.9% (n = 244) of women have experienced physical and/or sexual IPV at least once in their lives. Among them, an EFA of 31 gender beliefs and norms identified three latent variables: community norms about male dominance over female partners (C-MDP) (11 items; ω = 0.86); respondent beliefs about male dominance over female partners (I-MDP) (12 items; ω = 0.83); and survivor blaming attitudes (SBA) for the IPV they experienced (8-items; ω = 0.83). Some 15% of survivors had attempted suicide in the past, 8% had disclosed having suicidal thoughts, 49% were considered at risk for depression, and 18% at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. Survivors who more strongly endorsed C-MDP appeared more likely to have attempted suicide (p = 0.04), and less likely to have disclosed their IPV experience prior to the study (p = 0.002). Survivors who more strongly endorsed SBA appeared more likely to have had suicidal thoughts (p = 0.02) and greater post-traumatic stress symptoms (p = 0.06). C-MDP, I-MDP and SBA appear related to psychosocial and disclosure outcomes. Gendered social norms may play an important role in understanding how survivors experience IPV stigma. We recommend further research into culture-informed practices that act to socialise such norms.