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What Gender-Based Violence Looks Like When You Are Queer, Trans, or Intersex
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In recent months, my colleagues at Outright International and several of our partner organizations investigated various forms of gender-based violence and how they impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people, online and offline. Here are some of the stories they reported:
A gay teenage boy in Ecuador, attending a military school, was sent to a “rehabilitation clinic” where he was “made to exercise naked alongside naked girls.”
A nonbinary intersex person in Ghana recalled the pain of being called “a witch” by teachers and forced to live in the basement of their dormitory at boarding school, separated from other students.
A lesbian woman involved in political activism in the Philippines said that a far-right news network “called me a lesbian on their Youtube channel, exposing my name, that I’m a lesbian, and calling me a terrorist and communist.…[They suggested] my comments have no validity because I’m lesbian.”
A nonbinary pansexual person in Malaysia reported that when they posted content about sexual orientation and gender identity on their YouTube account, men responded with comments like “Maybe if I fucked you hard enough, you will stop liking girls.”
A transgender woman in Argentina said, “If they beat me up, it was my fault. If they insulted me, it was because I wasn’t walking right… it was my fault."
These stories are timely. From November 25 to December 10 each year, the United Nations system and feminist organizations around the world join forces to commemorate the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual campaign that has taken place since 1991. This year, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime will launch a new report on femicides, and the UN Secretary-General is leading a campaign under the theme “Every 10 Minutes, a woman is killed. #NoExcuse. UNiTE to End Violence against Women.”
Most years, the voices of LGBTIQ people are glaringly absent from the most visible elements of the global campaign. This year is no exception. While the campaign’s name refers to “gender-based violence,” available UN materials refer exclusively to violence against women and girls. This is a missed opportunity.
Ending femicides should be an urgent global priority. There is, indeed, #NoExcuse for violence against women. And centering women and girls in discussions of gender-based violence makes good sense. But in principle, the discourse of “gender-based violence” ought to open up ample space to discuss the gendered norms and hierarchies that contribute to violence not only against women, but also against queer, trans, and intersex people of all genders.
Eradicating gender-based violence will require an understanding that gender-based violence is, at its root, a result of rigid gender binaries and norms–and patriarchy’s insistence on enforcing them through physical, emotional, and economic violence. It will require a decolonial approach that appreciates that these harmful gender norms do not stem from local “tradition” in large parts of the world–they are colonial impositions that were often foisted on communities through the criminalization and violent displacement of more fluid and dynamic gender identities and systems. This critical analysis of gender-based violence helps to connects the dots between violence against women and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.
Legal and policy approaches to gender-based violence that are limited in scope to women and girls are likely to leave many queer, trans, and intersex survivors behind. Countries with high levels of femicides, such as Guatemala and Honduras, are unlikely to be able to quantify or respond adequately to femicides against trans women, who are not legally reconized as women because these countries’ legal frameworks do not allow trans people to change their official gender marker. In a 2022 Outright study on laws against domestic violence in ten Asian countries, we found that some domestic violence laws only apply to heterosexual partnerships and that even when laws are gender-inclusive, “redress and services do not adequately encompass LGBTQ survivors. As a result, they are often unable to seek justice and access institutional support.”
The cases highlighted above in Ecuador, Ghana, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Argentina are just a snapshot of the multifold forms of gender-based violence and abuse that LGBTIQ people experience because they do not conform to societal norms around sex and gender, as documented in a series of Outright reports that will be published over the next month in recognition of the 16 Days. The reports, which address harmful conversion “therapy” practices, online gender-based violence, and violence against intersex people, including intersex genital mutilation, should serve as a stark reminder that while gender-based violence is certainly deployed with the intention of scaffolding patriarchy and subjugating women, it does not exclusively impact women and girls.
The forthcoming Outright reports that address gender-based violence against our communities include the following:
The Persistence of Conversion Practices in Latin America summarizes research findings from grantee partners in Ecuador, Argentina, and Guatemala. Interviewees reported being physically confined, forced to take drugs, and subjected to verbal abuse and humiliation, all with the objective of altering their sexual orientation or gender identity. While not all conversion practices are physically violent, they all attempt to strip queer and trans people of gendered aspects of their identities, fitting into a continuum of gender-based violence. The report calls on governments to apply existing gender-based violence law and policy frameworks to conversion practices, with an eye to both prevention and, where appropriate, retribution.
“I Am” Intersex: Global Voices for Intersex Justice identifies human rights violations experienced by intersex people, including intersex genital mutilation and other harmful medical practices, abandonment, infanticide, bullying, lack of access to health care, lack of legal recognition, and exclusion of intersex women from participation in sports. The report draws on interviews with 15 intersex activists in 11 countries to highlight movement priorities and the urgent need for protective legislation, movement strengthening, and financial support.
Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer Women Online: An Overview of Emerging Concerns from Asia presents research findings from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women, along with some nonbinary and transmasculine people, were surveyed about their experiences online. They reported that sexual harassment, doxing, cyberstalking, forced outing, and hate speech online were prevalent and that they faced specific targeting due to the intersection of their identities as women or persons assigned female at birth, and their sexuality. The report calls on governments and social media companies to step up protections against online gender-based violence, including in legal contexts in which LBQ women are criminalized.
These reports come hot on the heels of another recently published Outright report, Empowering Identity: The Case for Self-Determined Legal Gender Recognition, published on 20 November, Transgender Day of Remembrance. The report identifies legal gender recognition as a crucial tool in reducing gender-based violence and discrimination against trans people. It points out that since the inception of the annual Trans Murder Monitoring Report in 2008, more than 5,000 murders of trans people have been documented. Consistent with previous years, of the 350 murders reported in 2023, 94% were femicides–murder of trans women or transfeminine people.
As we commemorate the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, Outright calls on the UN and our partners in the feminist movement to maintain an expansive understanding of gender and gendered violence, and to address violence against women and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics through a holistic approach that interrogates root causes, including the enforcement of rigid gender binaries and norms. We remind our partners that with the election of the Trump administration in the United States, there will be a reinvigorated drive to erase the concept of gender, replacing terms like “gender-based violence” with more restrictive alternatives like “violence against women and children” not only in US federal law as well but also in international instruments. Multilateral institutions, non-governmental development partners, and others might be tempted to cave in and set gender aside, restricting their efforts to the somehow less controversial “women and girls.” That would be shortsighted.
Without an inclusive gender-based violence framework, we cannot account for the gendered harm inflicted upon the gay teenager at a conversion camp in Ecuador, the intersex student in Ghana cast away from their peers, the online threats and attacks targeting queer and nonbinbary people in the Philippines and Malaysia who dare to be outspoken online, the trans woman beaten in Argentina for the way she walked. Their stories should be part of the 16 Days, their poignant voices and urgent calls for justice amplified not only by LGBTIQ organizations, but by all who endeavor to eradicate gender-based violence.
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