Abstract
Incredible advances have been made in recent decades on understanding the impact of sexual violence (SV) on individuals, families, and communities. However, there is still a great deal to learn about the experiences of populations particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, such as sexual and gender minorities. Recent studies have found that sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are at an elevated risk for sexual violence victimization across the lifespan compared to cisgender heterosexual individuals, yet many questions remain about how best to respond to and prevent sexual violence among this population. In this chapter, we examine how sexual violence is experienced by those within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (SGM) community and highlight important issues for scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to be aware of. We begin by reporting the prevalence of sexual violence among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender subgroups separately in order to demonstrate specific and unique characteristics of each groups’ experiences before moving on to perpetration among and against sexual and gender minorities, highlighting unique forms of SV among this population. In the next chapter, we focus on the mental and physical health consequences of this violence. We then examine unique risk factors such as minority stress, internalized negative beliefs concerning identity, and specific barriers to treatment before concluding the chapter by identifying protective factors for these groups and best practices for intervention and prevention.
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Beyer, M.S., Toumayan, A.C., Hipp, T.N. (2021). Sexual Violence among Sexual and Gender Minorities. In: Geffner, R., White, J.W., Hamberger, L.K., Rosenbaum, A., Vaughan-Eden, V., Vieth, V.I. (eds) Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62122-7_215-2
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Sexual Violence among Sexual and Gender Minorities- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62122-7_215-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62122-7_215-1