Preventing sexual violence in sexual orientation and gender diverse communities: A call to action

Figures & data

Table 1. Recommendations for preventing sexual violence of SOGD at each layer of the socioecological model (SEM).

SEM Layer	Specific Prevention Recommendation
Societal/Policy	Mandate inclusive coverage of SOGD history to promote safety for SOGD youth (e.g. Inclusive Curriculum in Illinois). Implement and enforce policies that protect SOGD communities from harm (e.g. anti-discrimination policies, SOGD specific anti-bullying policies) and challenge policies that endeavour to foster hostile environments for SOGD people (e.g. Don’t Say Gay laws).
Community	Ensure that sexual violence surveillance surveys are using inclusive assessment strategies for gender identity (e.g. a two-step approach), sexual orientation, and sexual victimization. Inclusive contextual information about sexual violence victimization and perpetration should be collected. Sex education should be comprehensive and integrate sexual SOGD-inclusive content (particularly related to sexual violence and sexual health). Adapt and expand bystander intervention programmes (e.g. Green Dot) to challenge participants to promote safe environments for SOGD people that do not tolerate violence against SOGD people. Explicitly integrate anti-oppression training and education about unique risks among SOGD people.
Relationship	Ensure that bystander intervention programmes include programming on recognizing violence between SOGD people and provide training about how personal biases can contribute to likelihood to intervene.
Individual	Adopt gender transformative paradigms within prevention programming that using social norms approaches that can reduce SOGD victimization disparities. Ensure that consent education programming contains inclusive information about SOGD victimization disparities.