“I Wasn’t a Priority, I Wasn’t a Victim”: Challenges in Help Seeking for Transgender Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

Among the crucial advancements in the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) is an understanding of the distinct help-seeking barriers that gay and lesbian victims face. Despite these additions to the literature, transgender IPV victimization remains under-researched. The current study utilized semi-structured interviews and openended questionnaires of 18 trans-identified survivors of IPV. Working through a modified grounded analytic approach, two major themes emerged in the help-seeking process: “walking the gender tightrope” in which participants first struggled with gendered notions of victimization that made it difficult to identify abuse, and second, the challenges of “navigating genderist resources.”

Publication Date: 
2016
Pages: 
1-21
Volume: 
22
Issue: 
7
Journal Name: 
Violence Against Women