The sexual victimization that people of the LGBTQ community face receives a small amount of attention. The studies that have been conducted to understand the situations, people and rate of these instances have been limited in certain aspects. Some of the most important things that need to be considered in this area is the rate that this community is targeted, why they are higher risk targets, how to prevent these crimes and how to support and create an effective support system when they do occur. These issues are not isolated to the LGBTQ community but this community receives far less attention than their cisgender heterosexual counterparts. Research in this area is beneficial because it validates the feelings and consequences that arise from the victimization and sexual assault that these people have to endure.
The study “Mental Health in Violent Crime Victims: Does Sexual Orientation Matter?” focused on comparing the victimization of LGBT victims with that of heterosexual crime victims. There were three different research questions that shaped the research study. First was “How do LGBT victims differ from heterosexual counterparts in terms of types of crime and demographic characteristics?”; second, “How does victim sexual orientation relate to trauma-associated clinical symptoms (i.e., acute stress, depression, panic, and general anxiety) after victimization? and lastly, “How does victim sexual orientation moderate the relations between victim and crime characteristics (i.e., victim gender, type of crime, and victim trauma history) and the above clinical symptoms?” (Cramer, McNiel, Holley, Shumway & Boccellari, 2011).
The participants were victims of a crime who sought emergency medical treatment. There was a total of 655 victims of a violent crime, however, only 641 one of these fit the needs of this study. The data was collected from a previously proposed demonstration project. This specific study used only the cross-sectional baseline data from the original project. The crime that the victims experienced was grouped into six different categories. They were domestic violence, sexual assault, shooting, stabbing, physical assault, and vehicular assault. Sexual orientation was divided into heterosexual and LGBT in order to be able to determine whether people from the LGBT community were more likely to victims of a certain crime type. Domestic and sexual assault were grouped together and describe as relational assault, whereas, the rest of the types of assault were labeled as general assault. The researchers used the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Scale to measure the amount of traumatic stress that the participants experienced in their lifetime. The Acute Stress Disorder Scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire were used to assess general traumatic symptoms, depressive symptoms, general anxiety and panic symptoms.
The results did indicate that there were some demographic differences depending on the sexual orientation of the victim. LGBT victims were more likely to be European American, had a higher monthly income and had higher rates of physical and sexual trauma history. The top three typed of victimization that was the most prevalent for LGBT victims were physical assault, sexual assault and domestic violence. LGBT victims also displayed a much higher chance of becoming victims of sexual assault. They were 2.3 times more likely to experience sexual assault than their heterosexual counterparts. In conclusion, this study found that LGBT victims showed higher rates overall for sexual assault. This study was also able to establish that there is a difference in the types of crimes that LGBT victims are most likely to experience.
This research is helpful in identifying that the LGBT community is truly more vulnerable to sexual assault. Another important issue to research is within the LGBT community which subgroups are at higher risk than others. The research study “Among Undergraduate Students: Exploring Differences by and Intersections of Gender Identity, Sexual Identity, and Race/Ethnicity” by Robert W.S. Coulter, Christina Mair, Elizabeth Miller, John R. Blosnich, Derrick D. Matthews and Heather L. McCauley investigated the independent effects of sexual identity, gender identity, and race/ethnicity on sexual assault within the past year and they investigated the interaction effects of these three aspects on sexual assault. The researchers hypothesized that LGBT people would be at a higher risk for sexual assault overall.
The study design consisted of a cross-sectional survey that was given out through the American College Health Association. The data used ranged from Fall 2011, Fall 2012, and Fall 2013 and came from 120 higher education institutions. There were 73,791 undergraduate students who participated in the study. Sexual assault was measured by presenting three yes/no options in the survey that pertained to sexual instances which happened with force or without consent. These questions were “Within the past 12 months”: (1) “were you sexually touched without your consent”; (2) “was sexual penetration attempted (vaginal, anal, oral) without your consent”; and (3) “were you sexually penetrated (vaginal, anal, oral) without your consent” (Coulter, R, et al., 2017). These questions are designed to extract any information on whether there was any history of sexual assault in the participants life recently. If any of these questions had a yes answer then they were labeled as having experienced sexual assault. Sexual identity was measured by asking the question “What is your sexual orientation?” and they were given the options heterosexual, gay/lesbian, bisexual or unsure. Gender identity was assessed in the same manner and the options given were female, male, or transgender. The race/ethnicity options given to the participants were: White only, Black only, Hispanic/Latina(o), Asian or Pacific Islander only and other. The age range was between 18-40 years or more and the year in school for their undergraduate studies was also measured.
The results of the study indicate that gender identity and sexual identity both play a role in the probability of experiencing sexual assault. Individuals who identify as transgender were at the highest risk for experiencing sexual assault and cisgender women were the second highest. Sexual assault was highest for bisexuals and for people who identified as unsure of their sexual identity. Gay/lesbian individuals were at the second highest risk and at the lowest risk were heterosexuals. Ethnic minorities were also at a higher risk than whites were.
One study that was particularly interested in identifying the relationship between sexual assault and anti-LGBT stigma is titled “Minority Stress and the Risk of Unwanted Sexual Experiences in LGBQ Undergraduates”. This research study was conducted by Gabriel R. Murchison, Melanie A. Boyd and John E. Pachankis (2016) and they were attempting to “determine whether minority stress, specifically internalized homophobia, predicted unwanted sexual experiences among LGBQ undergraduates, whether routine behaviors mediated this relationship, and whether sense of LGBTQ community was a protective factor” (p. 1). Their study was focused on their belief that minority stress was an important factor for sexual violence. They were conducting this research in order to create evidence that would help create better violence prevention interventions as well as violence prevention efforts that will help create programs that are aimed at creating a supportive community. There were eight hypotheses being investigated within this study, two of which focused specifically on internalized homophobia and how this affects unwanted sexual experiences. These two hypotheses were “Internalized homophobia will predict greater unwanted sexual experience risk” and “Bisexual/queer/pansexual orientation will be associated with greater unwanted sexual experience risk, mediated by lower sense of LGBTQ community and greater internalized homophobia.
The participants that were eligible to participate in the study had to be at least 18 years old and must have reported a sexual orientation that was not “straight or heterosexual” and had to be participating in an undergraduate degree program. The most dominant sexual orientation that was selected was gay, followed by bisexual, lesbian, queer, pansexual and asexual respectively. An online survey was used and the recruitment part of the study took place over social media and well as through an email list from six colleges. Gender identity, sexual orientation, internalized homophobia, sense of LGBTQ community and unwanted sexual experiences were the factors measured that were needed to support the two hypotheses dealing with sexual orientation and sexual assault.
The results of the study pertaining to the associations with unwanted sexual experiences (a completed sex act). In terms of gender women were the most likely to be at a higher risk of experiencing unwanted sexual experiences. Internalized homophobia did show a significant relationship with unwanted sexual experiences but did not have a significant relationship for assault. Students with greater internalized homophobia were at a higher risk for unwanted sexual experiences but not for assault. The sense of LGBTQ community was not significant in any models that had internalized homophobia associated with it. Once internalized homophobia was removed, sense of LGBTQ community had a negative association with unwanted sexual experiences. The hypothesis that the researchers proposed about bisexual/queer/pansexual orientation was not supported because there was not association between these sexual orientations and unwanted sexual experiences. It actually seems that gay/lesbian and bisexual/queer/pansexual are at the same risk for unwanted sexual experiences. Out of the eight hypotheses that this study proposed only two were supported by the data gathered. The two that were supported were that sexual experience risk was directly associate with internalized homophobia and not positively related with sense of LGBTQ community.
People who are a part of the LGBTQ community face discrimination in their everyday lives from multiple sources. This comes from people who do not understand and are unwilling to learn the issues that LGBTQ people have to endure. They may even face persecution from the institutions that are supposed to protect them which causes distrust among the LGBTQ community. The research study “Sexual Violence, Institutional Betrayal, and Psychological Outcomes for LGB College Students” researched whether LGBTQ individuals were at a higher risk for institutional betrayal when in comparison to heterosexual individuals.
The study had four hypotheses that were based on the exploration of the relationships between LGB status and sexual harassment and assault, institutional betrayal related to the assault, and psychological outcomes. The hypotheses are “LGB- identified individuals will report more sexual harassment and assault then heterosexual individuals, LGB individuals will report more negative psychological outcomes across several important domains following both sexual harassment and assault than heterosexual individuals, LGB individuals will report more institutional betrayal than heterosexual individuals and institutional betrayal will account for unique variance in the relationship between sexual assault and harassment and negative psychological outcomes for LGB participants” (Smith, Cunningham & Freyd, 2016).
The participants of the study were 299 undergraduate psychology students at a university in the Pacific Northwest. The data was collected using online surveys and were unaware of the topic that was being studied. Sexual harassment was measured using the Service Academies Sexual Assault survey provided by the Department of Defense. The way it is designed is so that it can identify sexual harassment and sexual assault over a person’s lifetime. Institutional betrayal was measured with the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire that was modified for the study. This was given to the participants who indicated that they had experience sexual harassment or assault. Traumatic symptoms were measured by using the PTSD check-list- Civilian Version. They also measure depression by using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale and collective self-esteem was measure with an adapted version of the Collective self-esteem scale.
The results of the study supported three of the four hypotheses that were proposed by the researchers conducting the study. LGB participants exhibited a higher reporting of sexual harassment than heterosexual individuals in the study. PTSD scores were higher in the LGB participants of the study and the LGB status overall predicted a higher PTSD scores for unwanted sexual experiences. The depression scores that LGB participants scored indicated that they were experiencing higher levels of depression than the heterosexual participants. LGB participants showed that they are at higher risk of having a low self-esteem. Institutional betrayal was shown to be higher in LGB participants of the study. The study was successful in identifying the ways in which LGB individuals are at higher risk for sexual trauma and developing negative psychological outcomes that can be due in part to the unsupportive institutional environments.
The last article that brings together the rest of the research is “Sexual Violence and Help-Seeking Among LGBQ and Heterosexual College Students”. The purpose of this study was also to seek to understand the link between sexual orientation in the occurrence and context of sexual violence victimization. The hypotheses of this story were (1) “that reports of sexual violence would be significantly higher among LGBQ college students than heterosexual students” and (2) “that help-seeking among LGBQ victims would be significantly lower than help-seeking among heterosexual victims” (Richardson, Armstrong, Hines & Palm Reed, 2015).
There were 2,790 students who were a part of the sample in the study over four years. The study’s data was collected through an online survey that was anonymous. The sexual identities that were reported in the study were bisexual, gay/lesbian, other. Sexual violence victimization was measured with six questions that were designed to assess how often they were forced, threatened and forced to engage in nonconsensual sexual contact or intercourse. Help-seeking was measure using another six questions that were targeted towards finding out whether victims sought out help from formal or informal sources. If they did not seek out help then the researchers were interested in finding out the reason behind them not seeking out help.
The results indicated that there was a higher chance that LGBQ individuals were more likely to report an event of sexual violence. They reported a median of about 2 instances in which they experienced an act of sexual violence. The percentage of students who sought out formal help was higher for heterosexual victims than it as LGBTQ victims. When seeking informal help from a friend or loved one there was no significant difference between the victims. The most common reason that both heterosexual and LGBTQ victims did not seek help was that they did not perceive the assault as being “that serious”.
Discussion
The studies that have been presented in the previous section all support the idea that LGBTQ individuals are at a higher risk of experiencing sexual assault. The consequences that are associated with this victimization create a need for better understanding and support of this community. The studies that were summarized in the previous section have all concluded that sexual victimization is higher within the LGBTQ community but each study linked this with different variables.
Most of the studies conducted their data collection through online surveys that were accessible to undergraduate students. The methods were also similar in their construct because they all consisted of a fairly large participant pool. The findings that each of these studies had tied in with one another in creating a basis for a larger understanding of the contributing factors that make LGTBQ individuals more likely victims of sexual assault. The findings included the fact that LGBTQ individuals are 2x more likely to experience some type of assault in their life, gender and sexual identity are both contributing factors that can lead to a high risk of victimization. A supportive LGBTQ community was associated with a lower risk for sexual victimization, LGBTQ individuals are at higher risk for developing a low self-esteem, having a higher level of PTSD and other psychological complications based on the fact that they experience higher rates of institutional betrayal. LGBTQ students who are victims of sexual assault do seem to indicate slightly higher levels of reporting and seeking help than their heterosexual counterparts but overall, they are still not seeking help most of the time.
The issues of gender and sexual identity are the core parts from which discrimination usually stems from. The lack of understanding creates such a divide between individuals who identify at LGBTQ and heterosexuals that they cannot be studied in the same way. Each group deals different types of issues that affect their vulnerability to sexual assaults. LGBTQ individuals are vulnerable people and if they are disconnected and pushed away from a community they will have a vulnerability that can cause great disadvantages. This issue is important because sexual assault is a gruesome crime that goes extremely unreported in general and most research is focused on sexual crimes that pertain mainly to heterosexual individuals. Without the appropriate research for LGBTQ victims there cannot be an effective support system on campuses or other institutions that can help victims rebuild and move on.