Understanding Transmen's Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Very little research has been conducted about transmen's experiences of intimate partner violence despite the evidence that we experience it at a higher rate. A study by Closson et al reported that transmen are victims of IPV at a rate of 6.7 times higher than women in general, which is also more than double the rate at which transwomen experience it. This study says nothing about who the perpetrators are (whether male, female or trans-identified), nor the specific types of violence (punching, shoving, use of weapons), nor the impact (physical, emotional harm).

Data from other sources sheds some light.

According to the U.S. Transgender Survey only 23% of the transmen stated that they were exclusively attracted to men, which stacks the probability towards being in relationships with women.

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that men and women commit IVP at approximately the same rate, though men tend to inflict more bodily harm.

Here's a significant challenge to feminism, as it applies to transmen: It's build a public perception that men are more likely to perpetrate IPV and women are more likely to be the victims.

When men are the victims of IVP, they face several complicating factors, largely due to stereotypes:

• Social stigma

• Met with disbelief or suspicion

• Feelings of shame

• Not having resources or safe places to flee to for support

• Under-reporting incidents

In this regard, transmen face similar challenges, especially when their partners are women, which is heightened when the transmen pass as men and their partners are feminine presenting. Most resources and spaces designed for victims of IPV are for women, which may or may not include transmen. Passing transmen may not feel comfortable in such spaces and our inclusion in those spaces may feel threatening to the women who have fled to those spaces from male partners.

Feminism has rightly identified sex-based patterns of victimization. For example, the vast majority (up to 98%) of sexual offenders are men, and the majority of victims of sexual violence (around 91%) are women. Feminists are largely to credit for the creation of safe spaces for women who have been victimized. However, they may have also inadvertently created harmful stereotypes that equate masculinity with violence and femininity with victimhood, which works against the interests of transmen who are being victimized at a higher rate than women in general, and are no more likely to be perpetrators of IPV, nor sexual violence, than women in general.

Feminism is redeemable.

One of the core projects of feminism is to eliminate "gender", defining gender as societally constructed expectations for men and women - that men must be masculine and women must be feminine, and that masculinity and femininity must envelope certain traits. While some forms of aggression are sex-based, others appear to be gender-based. Disentangling masculinity from an expectation of violent acts is protective of masculine women and, by extension, transmen. Masculinity, indeed, can be a site of victimization which can't be spoken of or seen. Should we dare to become angry about this, we're seen as aggressive men. Fun game! Feminism must liberate the masculine. Otherwise, it's only a movement for feminine women and reinforces the very stereotypes it aims to eliminate.

Feminisim is for transmen.