Intimate Partner Violence Help-Seeking in the U.S. Transgender Survey

ABSTRACT

Research finds that transgender survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) often face transphobia-related barriers to reaching help. Due partially to a dearth of larger datasets supporting multivariate analyses, it is unclear whether sociodemographic factors can further hinder transgender help-seeking. Addressing these gaps, logistic regression secondary data analyses were conducted with 15,198 transgender IPV survivors from the nationally-representative 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Odds of seeking help from survivor agencies were significantly greater for survivors who are trans men, assigned-female-at-birth genderqueer, Alaska Native or American Indian, poorer, transphobia victims, and victims of any IPV type, especially controlling IPV. In addition, odds of not seeking help due fearing transphobic responses were significantly greater for survivors who are trans women, asexual or bisexual, poorer, younger, undocumented, childless, ever homeless, transphobia victims, or victims of any IPV type, particularly sexual IPV. Implications for future research and population-specific service provision are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• transphobia
• intimate partner violence
• domestic violence
• help-seeking
• shelters
• demographic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

This work is based on data generated from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, which was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality. To request access to the dataset, visit http://www.ustranssurvey.org/data-requests.