NC State Women's Center >> Relationship Violence >> Transgender Relationships

Transgender individuals may be more likely to stay in relationships with a partner who is abusive because they fear that finding a partner that will accept them is very difficult.  As a result, some may choose to stay in relationships where they are being abused rather than risk not being able to find another partner.  This is especially true for trans people of color.  A transgender person who is also a person of color and LGB will often find that racism and heterosexism are taken much more seriously as forms of oppression than is the transphobia they encounter.  Trans people of color may put a high value on having partners of their own race and find it hard to let go of them, even if they are abusive.

People that identify as transgender are subject to additional forms of abuse based upon their physical appearance, particularly those that are transitioning from one gender identity to another:

Gender identity-related-abuse

• Physically assault surgically or medically altered body parts.
• Transition-related abuse: withhold money for transition health care, clothing, medication or hormones.
• Coerce partner to get medical or surgical treatment to change their body back to what the abuser wants it to be.
• Exploit internalized transphobia: use various forms of abuse to heighten partner’s sense of fear or shame related to their gender identity in order to control them.
• Target sexual or emotional abuse toward parts of the body that partner is ashamed of or detached from.
• Ridicule partner’s gender identity: appearance, dress, voice quality, grooming, etc.
• Criticize sexual performance affected by hormones.
• Try to convince partner that they deserved abuse, or that they themselves are the real abuser, because of how hormones are influencing their behavior.
• Threaten to out partner as transgender.
• Force partner to expose scars.
• Refuse to use partner’s preferred pronouns.
• Force partner to engage in risky and/or degrading behavior (e.g. prostitution) in order to financially support abuser.
• Refuse to legitimize relationship by introducing partner to family & friends.

• Harass partner at work.
• Exploit transgender people’s difficulty finding jobs.
• Suggest that social service providers, health care providers, and law enforcement would subject victim to further abuse. (Trans people’s frequent experience of inappropriate or abusive behavior by professionals makes this threat quite effective.)

Transgender abusers may:

• Blame abuse on their transition-related hormonal changes (aggression and irritability for men, mood swings for women).

• Use hormone-related mood changes or angry outbursts to manipulate or intimidate a partner.
• If both partners are transgender, the abuser may demean their partner by claiming to be more ‘real’, and therefore more believable (e.g. “I look more like a real woman than you do.”)

Non-trans abusers may:

• Only relate to their partner sexually or treat them as a sexual objects and refuse to engage in other aspects of the relationship.
• Blame abuse on the victim’s transgender identity, gender expression, or other form of self-expression.
• Emphasize the likelihood that she/he (the abusive partner) will be taken more seriously by police and service providers.

Difficulty Finding Help

It can be very difficult for transgender people to find available, appropriate, or sensitive services because of biases and misperceptions of transgenderism.  The following lists some of the challenges that trans-identified people have in accessing services:

• Transgender survivors of relationship violence may believe that it is normal for transgender people to live with abuse. They may have a history of transition-related abuse from other people on which to base this belief.
• Authorities and helpers may respond with cruelty, ridicule and indifference.
• They may be perceived as mentally ill. Transgender individuals often are diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, in order to justify medical treatment, but then find that others use this explicitly psychiatric diagnosis to question their sanity. Like other survivors of relationship violence, they may be misperceived as mentally ill if they remain in a relationship with an abusive partner.
• Helpers often wrongly assume that transgender people (particularly transgender women) are gay, confusing gender identity with sexual orientation.
• When seeking medical services, transgender people experience inappropriate or abusive treatment, including denial of ER treatment or appointments with physicians, negative comments during treatment, rough treatment during examinations  and outright abuse based on their gender identity.

Women’s shelters may see transgender women as “invaders” or “really men,” and respond to them with distrust and hostility.

• A  transgender woman was required to submit to a police cavity search in order to stay in a DV shelter, because shelter staff said they felt “male vibes” & felt the need to protect other residents from her.
• Staff are not trained in transgender issues related to relationship violence.
• Staff and other residents may be hostile toward them and feel free to mistreat them.
• Even trans women who have lived as women for many years, may only be able to escape an abusive relationship by dressing as a man in order to use a men’s homeless shelter.
• The survivor may have to choose between facing unknown dangers from strangers in a strange setting (a shelter) or known dangers from their partner. Most will opt for the known danger rather than face the risk in a homeless shelter setting.
• They may be refused admittance to a shelter, placing those who lose their housing as a result of a violent relationship, at risk of homelessness.