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Abstract

Much of the focus of the feminist antiviolence movement has been directed toward the experiences of cisgender heterosexual people and their criminal legal system (CLS) contact. Less is known about the experiences of racially marginalized lesbians who have had CLS contact due to their use of force or alleged use of force. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study focuses on the written reports of 14 cisgender lesbians, 10 of whom are women of color. Their self-reports documented during court-ordered antiviolence intervention intake assessments following their arrests and convictions provide first-person accounts of why the women perpetrated harm against their intimate partners. Using thematic analysis, the authors inductively and deductively analyzed the women's descriptions for exploratory themes. Centering the women's words and experiences through the resulting themes, the authors encourage a critical analysis of cis heteronormative institutional practices that pose barriers to cisgender lesbians receiving holistic support while navigating intimate partner violence and abuse. Considerations for feminist social work practice, advocacy, and research are discussed.

Keywords

domestic violence intervention lesbian violence battered women's movement

Introduction

The 1970s U.S.-based battered women's movement brought public attention to the private problem of men's violence against women. Although these efforts successfully raised awareness about a significant social problem and promoted the safety and well-being of countless women through alliances with law enforcement, an unintended consequence was neglecting the needs of those harmed who were not cisgender heterosexual middle-class white women (Richie et al., 2021; Sweet, 2021). As arrest policies changed to direct police to arrest perpetrators of abuse, all use of force incidents were identified without distinguishing between motivation or context of those who harmed others and those who used force in self-defense or for other reasons (Larance et al., 2022; Larance & Miller, 2017). This decontextualized carceral approach overlooked the complex dynamics of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPV/A), namely coercively controlling actions that may or may not include physical harm (Goodmark, 2012; Larance et al., 2022; Stark, 2007). Failure to understand the context of use of force had serious repercussions for any accused woman who fought back against her male abuser and was exacerbated for women of color who already experienced police bias (Hill et al., 2012; Richie & Eife, 2021).

With regard to violence in lesbian relationships, battered women's movement activists were concerned that acknowledging women's violence against other women could undermine movement efforts, focused on bringing attention to the pervasive problem of men's violence against women (Hammond, 1989; McLaughlin & Rozee, 2001). This lack of focus on violence in lesbian relationships also stemmed from inaccurate assumptions, rooted in heterosexual bias, that violence between women in intimate relationships was less severe and, therefore, less deserving of attention (Renzetti, 1992; Ristock, 2002; West, 2012). Often this omission renders the experiences of lesbians — diverse across identities, positionalities, and life experiences — who have experienced IPV/A invisible in practice, advocacy, and research. This is despite findings that forty-four percent of lesbians have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner, compared to 35% of heterosexual women (The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2010). Furthermore, according to a National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (2015) report, “LGBTQ Black/African American survivors were 1.47 times more likely to be injured as a result of IPV than those who did not identify as LGBTQ and Black/African American” (p. 10). In addition, hyper-policing practices that discriminate against non-heterosexuality and expansive expressions of gender result in LGBTQIA+¹ people being three times more likely to experience incarceration than the general population (Meyer et al., 2017; Robinson, 2020). Nonetheless, the lack of services for lesbians across identities and positionalities who survived their partner's harm, as well as those who have harmed their partners, persists (Hill et al., 2012; Ristock, 2011; Simpson & Helfrich, 2014). Thus, lesbians in violent intimate relationships, similar to other marginalized people, are especially vulnerable to a range of risk factors due to intersectional oppression and minority stress factors such as trauma, compromised mental and physical health, poverty, lack of understanding of use of violence, and systemic barriers to community-based supportive services (Hill et al., 2012). Understanding lesbians’ descriptions of the actions that resulted in their arrests and court-orders to antiviolence intervention (AVI), will inform practitioners’, advocates’ and researchers’ efforts to end harmful cisheteronormative practices and promote holistic services that better meet the diverse population's needs.

There is broad practice and research-focused scholarship on women's use of force in their intimate heterosexual relationships, and the legal system's responses to their actions (Bible et al., 2002; Dasgupta et al., 2003; Gardner, 2009; Larance, 2024b; Miller, 2005; Osthoff et al., 2002). However, lesbian survivors who have used force likely experience IPV/A differently from their heterosexual counterparts given cultural norms, heteronormative ideologies, and disparate treatment by the criminal legal system (CLS). To date, systems involved lesbians’ descriptions of the events that led to their arrests have largely gone unexplored (Panfil et al., 2022). The authors address this gap in the literature by detailing the experiences of 14 cisgender self-identified lesbians in the women's own words, the majority of whom are women of color. The authors highlight the intersectional experiences of those often left invisible in conversations regarding CLS involvement as a pathway to AVI while disproportionately represented in incarcerated populations.

The goal of this study is two-fold: 1) through exploratory themes,² encourage research and practice conversations informed by cisgender lesbians’ narratives about their pre-arrest behaviors which are often overlooked in the practice, advocacy, and research literature and 2) bring attention to considerations for practice that build on this understanding. Our goals challenge existing systems of power that typically mute or disregard relationships outside a heteronormative purview (Davis & Glass, 2011; Simpson & Helfrich, 2014; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005).

Historical Context

An overview of the 1970s U.S. battered women's movement, mandatory arrest, and evolution of AVI provide necessary context to understanding the system's cisheteronormative response to those who harm their partners (Schechter, 1982). The vulnerability of victims experiencing IPV/A occupied the U.S. battered women's movement's call for greater responsiveness by the CLS in the first half century of activism. This victim portrayal rested upon stereotypes of cisgender female victims who are in heterosexual relationships with cisgender male perpetrators. During the second wave of feminism (early 1970s) mainstream feminist activists and scholars framed IPV/A as a result of patriarchal power yielded by men in relationships and families at the expense of those most socially marginalized: women, people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities (Richie et al., 2021). Scholars also began to explore similarities and differences between how members of LGBTQIA + communities experience IPV/A vis-à-vis their heterosexual counterparts (Perilla et al., 2003; Renzetti, 1992, 1999). Most cases of violence against socially marginalized people went unreported to authorities and communities lacked necessary resources to address IPV/A (Richie et al., 2021). Purporting to be for “all” women, this essentialist approach was critiqued extensively by women of color for its over-privileging of white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class women and its failure to incorporate the needs of women of color (Kanuha, 1996; Richie, 2000, 2012). Furthermore, this left movement organizers of color out of formal AVI organizing spaces (Richie et al., 2021). Concomitantly, Crenshaw (1991) conceptualized an intersectional framework as a way to acknowledge and identify systems of oppression that arise from multiple intersecting identities which proved helpful for the antiviolence discourse and practice.

Carceral Responses: Mandatory Arrest

The overreliance on state power to dismantle men's abuse of women generated dependency on criminal law that defines IPV/A as incident-driven and requiring arrest. Goodmark (2012) and others (Kim, 2020; Larance, 2024a, 2024b; Miller, 2005; Richie, 2012) demonstrate that a reliance on arrest and criminal sanctions has had unintended consequences. For example, mandatory arrest policies have resulted in the wrongful arrest of domestic violence survivors physically defending themselves (Larance, 2024a; Larance et al., 2022; Miller, 2005). Not only does CLS involvement produce disproportionate harm for women of color in heterosexual relationships (Richie, 1996), the experiences of people from LGBTQIA + communities may go unrecognized as their relationships do not align with the CLS-focused cisheteronormative paradigm of cis men physically abusing cis women (Donovan & Barnes, 2020). Furthermore, African American lesbians, as Hill et al. (2012) point out, are often portrayed as “innately aggressive and masculinized” (p. 409). This stereotype illuminates how and why African American lesbians may be unfairly targeted by police and policing.

Initially introduced as a gender-neutral way to hold police accountable to victims of battering by guiding their power of discretion away from crisis intervention to formal state involvement, decades of studies reveal that arrest may exacerbate an already uneven playing field (Goodmark, 2012; Larance, 2024a; Larance et al., 2022; Miller, 2005). By failing to take into account the context of the situation, such as including the victimization history or distinguishing between the primary aggressor and the person using defensive measures, attending officers arrest the person(s) who used force in the presenting incident. This results in a cascade of consequences for women who use self-defense, such as being labeled an “offender,” court-mandated to an AVI, and having a criminal arrest history which may affect future housing and employment (Larance, 2024a, 2024b; Larance et al., 2022; Miller, 2005). This is a process in which the state expands its reach by merging anti-violence work with get-tough on crime policies that extend surveillance and policing of communities of color (Kim, 2020; Richie, 2012). While some argue that there may be room for using the legal system, such as the public confirmation that IPV/A is not a private matter but one that through public legal action such as arrest can convey community norms (see MacKinnon, 2003; Raphael, 2004); detractors note that carceral responses to IPV/A largely perpetuate injustice (Goodmark, 2023; Hill et al., 2012; Kim, 2018, 2020; Larance, 2024a, 2024b; Miller, 2005; Meiners et al., 2022; Richie et al., 2021; WOCN, 2006). Relationship abuse is rarely symmetrical or mutual, but can include self-defensive or protective action, yet mandatory arrest policies erase these distinctions and focus solely on a gender-neutral use of force that fails to distinguish between victim and abuser, actions exacerbated for lesbians in relationships defined by IPV/A.

Court-Ordered Antiviolence Intervention and the Gender Paradigm

In the U.S. context, best-practice in domestic assault cases with CLS involvement follows an established coordinated community response protocol (Pence, 2001; Shepard & Pence, 1999). This involves encouraging the systems identified victim (typically a cisgender heterosexual woman), to voluntarily seek confidential, trauma-informed (Elliott et al., 2005; SAMHSA, 2014) counseling at a domestic violence agency. The systems-identified offender (typically a cisgender heterosexual man) is then court-ordered to a fee-for-service battering intervention programming (BIP) developed to address heterosexual cisgender men's violence and coercive control (Dasgupta, 2002; Gondolf, 2004).

Thus, the movement's messaging and intervention has historically followed a gender paradigm; namely, the belief that heteronormative, patriarchal power pervades social and institutional structures that disproportionately afford power and privilege to cis men rather than cis women (Cannon, 2019; Cannon & Buttell, 2015; Russo & Pirlott, 2006; Subirana-Malaret et al., 2019). From this perspective, second-wave feminist antiviolence counselors traditionally viewed IPV/A solely as a result of patriarchy; thus, focusing efforts to help intervention participants, through individual or group modalities, realize and address the roots of their victimization (for women who survived men's abuse) and that of their perpetration (for men who abused women) (Bograd, 2005; Elliott, 1990; Messinger, 2017; Schechter, 1982). The gender paradigm revealed the patriarchal nature of many heterosexual relationships and gradually worked to deconstruct men's violence against women. However, this focus led to less research on and intervention attention paid to addressing lesbian violence and abuse as well as harm caused across other diverse relationships (Cannon & Buttell, 2015; Messinger, 2017). Centering gender inequality, at the expense of other experiences and identities, has resulted in a lack of necessary services for lesbians harmed by their partners and even less attention to those who harmed their partners (McLaughlin & Rozee, 2001; Ristock, 2002). Although people who have harmed their partners are a heterogeneous group, BIPs typically offer a “one size fits all” (Price & Rosenbaum, 2009) approach to intervention that assumes “IPV is an extension of male dominance and control” (Cannon, 2019, p. 224). This “one-size-fits all” approach that centers the carceral system includes language focused on heterosexual relationships that alienates lesbians and potentially encourages silence and ignorance among both those receiving services and those providing services (Renzetti, 1996; Simpson & Helfrich, 2014). Surveying 3,256 BIPs in the U.S. and Canada, Cannon (2019) found that 88% of programs who responded to the survey (N = 80) did not offer services specific to the needs of LGBTQIA + communities. Furthermore, only 2.1% of the programs (N = 2) had staff members who were trained in addressing harm in LGBTQIA + populations (Cannon, 2019). The convergence of the gender paradigm and what have become routine, heteronormative carceral-focused referral pathways mean that lesbians who have harmed their partners are typically court-ordered to BIPs designed to address men's power and control and may also be populated by heterosexual cisgender women who have harmed or allegedly harmed their heterosexual male partners (Larance, 2024b). Lesbian violence exists beyond heteronormative gender scripts and, instead, includes minority stress risk factors from homophobia both experienced and internalized, as well as stigma and discrimination (Subirana-Malaret et al., 2019).³ Furthermore, anti-carceral scholars note that a continued reliance on the carceral system to address IPV/A not only perpetuates institutional betrayal⁴ of people across identities (Larance, 2024b; Miller, 2005), but it also detracts from restorative and transformational justice possibilities (Kim, 2018, 2020).

IPV/A and Coercive Control in Lesbian Relationships

IPV/A between lesbians is as “a pattern of violence [or] coercive behaviors whereby a lesbian seeks to control the thoughts, beliefs, or conduct of her intimate partner or to punish the intimate for resisting the perpetrator's control” (Hart, 1986, p. 173). This definition, like that of IPV/A in heterosexual relationships, includes “physical abuse, destruction of property, psychological/emotional abuse, sexual abuse, economic control, and threats of violence” (Ristock, 2002, p. 8). Although the CLS often approaches IPV/A from an incident-based,⁵ violence-focused perspective, coercive control is a defining component of intimate harm. Coercive control is the ability to maintain long-term relationship domination and control, and may or may not include physical violence (Stark, 2007). While early and ongoing analysis of coercive control primarily focuses on the gendered (Anderson, 2009; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004) disparity in power between men and women, it can also be a component of IPV/A between women in same-sex relationships (Stark & Hester, 2019). Donovan and Hester (2015) point out that in heterosexual and same-sex relationships there are two relationship rules: 1) the relationship is for the partner who has caused harm and on their terms and 2) that the person who has been harmed is responsible for caring for the person who has harmed them and all aspects of maintaining the relationship. Donovan and Hester's (2015) work provides a way of illustrating how abusive relationship dynamics may play out along a gender binary and be shaped by cisgender, heteronormative assumptions, yet be applied to same-sex and heterosexual relationships to account for the power and abuse of power that takes place.

Understanding coercive control in lesbian relationships demands an intersectional approach, beyond a heteronormative lens (Renzetti, 1998). Although people across identities have the capacity to physically harm their partners and utilize coercive control to undermine and isolate them, IPV/A in women's same-sex relationships is distinct from IPV/A in heterosexual relationships because it takes place within the greater context of societal homophobia (Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). Ristock (2002) points out that lesbian relationships have “multiple, overlapping, and compounding factors” (p. 63) that are unique to those relationships and deserve a nuanced understanding. Thus, lesbians who have harmed their partners may use homophobia as a control tactic by threatening to disclose their partner's sexual identity at work, to family, or among friends (Hammond, 1989; Kanuha, 2013; Messinger, 2017; Renzetti, 1992; Ristock, 2002). Leveraging homophobia, a partner who uses tactics of abuse may weaponize their partners’ undisclosed sexual identity by “outing” them to a landlord, a boss, or family member; use their sexual identity to derail custody of a child; or place their immigration status in jeopardy (Ristock & Timbang, 2005). Although this is not unique to lesbian relationships, Renzetti (1992) found that women who abused their intimate same-sex partners tailored the abuse to their vulnerabilities, for example, making a diabetic partner eat sugar for “misbehaving.” Researchers have also found that lesbian relationships where there is IPV/A may be characterized by deep dependency. A partner who uses tactics of abuse may especially rely on the person she is harming as well as be very jealous of that partner (Kanuha, 2013; Renzetti, 1992). Furthermore, abuse may be more pronounced in first, early, and rebound lesbian relationships (Kanuha, 2013).

Intersectionality and Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse

Foregrounding gender and sexuality — to the exclusion of sexism, homophobia, and racism —potentially erases the experiences of marginalized lesbians who harm their intimate partners. It also poses a barrier to formulating and carrying out effective AVI (McLaughlin & Rozee, 2001). In contrast, an intersectional framework recognizes that people's individual overlapping identities — such as race, age, class, sexual identity, and gender identity — shape how they experience interpersonal, social, and institutional power (Crenshaw, 1991; Mehrotra, 2010). Importantly, an intersectional perspective brings visibility to a range of personal experiences (Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). A person's intersectional identities have consequences for their safety, how they are treated by members of the CLS, and help seeking. For example, lesbians of color who have not disclosed their sexual identity may be hesitant to reveal any details about their abusive relationships to law enforcement or intervention providers (Ristock, 2002), well aware of the possible repercussions of institutional racism and homophobia. Kanuha (1990) points out that racially marginalized women in same-sex relationships often encounter the “the triple jeopardy” of sexism, homophobia, and racism that “forms a complex web of silence and vulnerability with very little protection” (p. 176). Stereotypes of African American or Black lesbians as hypermasculine exacerbate the likelihood they will become systems-identified perpetrators in ways that are less likely for white lesbians (Hill et al., 2012).

Methodology

The current study aims to highlight lesbians’ descriptions of the actions that led to their arrests and court-orders to AVI. Fourteen⁶ cisgender lesbians’ answers to the query, “Please describe the actions that brought you to programming,” were part of a larger institutional review board (IRB) approved data set of 288 cisgender women who had contact with two separate AVI programs collected by the agency staff (see Larance & Miller, 2017). Informed consent was waived by the IRB given that it was anonymized secondary data.

In the larger study all of the participants provided oral and handwritten descriptions of their identities as well as the actions that led to their arrests. The AVI staff arrived at the participants’ demographic identities by asking them, for example, if they were heterosexual, lesbian, queer, or unsure; if they identified as cisgender or transgender; if they identified as African American/Black, Caucasian, or Latina; their age; whether they had children; and the last level of school they completed. Following best practices (Wodda & Panfil, 2018), respondents were provided a list of sexual orientation categories, including the opportunity to write-in their gender and sexual identity if not covered. The participants then handwrote the actions that led to their AVI referral on a brief, approximately five-line, intake-assessment questionnaire. The AVI staff provided the researchers with the women's anonymized descriptions. Over a period of 6 months, the researchers compiled and analyzed the 288 women's descriptions. The women's descriptions yielded 13 categories of the actions that led to their carceral involvement (Larance & Miller, 2017). All names used to refer to the women are pseudonyms. Seventy-five percent of those women from the full data set identified domestic and sexual violence survivorship histories. The AVI programs utilized a contextual framework to address women's use of force in women-only groups of approximately 5 to 12 people. Most group members (83%) identified as heterosexual cisgender women. The programs provided services to court⁷ and child protective services ordered clients, as well as voluntary participants. In the first of the two settings women assessed to have used force in self-defense were referred to survivor support at the local anti-domestic violence agency. In the second of the two settings all court ordered women were served in the AVI regardless of the assessment outcome.

Because the larger data set centered the experiences of heterosexual women, the 14 lesbians’ descriptions are centered in this work to bring attention to their experiences. The 14 lesbians indicated the following racialized identities: Black (7), Filipino (1), Multiracial (1), Native American (1), no designation (1), and white (3). One woman had children, and eight women were enrolled in or had completed college while the other six women's formal educations ranged from fifth grade through high school completion. Their use of force in their same-sex relationships was not reported in the previous publication as the work focused on 208 heterosexual women's use of force that led to their arrests, convictions, and court-ordered AVI participation. In the earlier work, the authors arrived at nine inductively and deductively derived themes by initially coding 40 cases from both programs, comparing results, refining the categories of motivations, and then adding and expanding definitions when necessary. This process included going back and forth between the original 40 cases and recoding new cases. A 96% interrater reliability was achieved among five coders. Five new themes inductively emerged (asserting dignity, edgework, false accusations, partner self-inflicts injuries, and horizontal hostility) and four themes (aggressive use of force, anticipatory, both use force, and self-defense) were deductively derived.⁸

Data Analysis

The descriptions of the 14 women aged between nineteen and forty-six years old, who self-identified as lesbians, were re-analyzed using inductive and deductive coding developed for the full data set. The inductive themes emerged as unique descriptions from this sample. The deductive themes were generated by empirical findings from research conducted with women who have used force.

In our deductive and inductive analysis of the fourteen lesbians’ written descriptions the authors replicated the iterative thematic coding (Gibbs, 2007) process mentioned above. The thematic coding was informed by intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1991), more specifically McCall's (2005) intracategorical complexity. Intracategorical complexity (McCall, 2005) not only calls attention to the experiences of previously unstudied or under-studied groups, but the approach also focuses on revealing differences and similarities within groups. In this replicated process the authors produced three exploratory themes: aggressive use of force and intimate betrayal, self-defense and systems betrayal, and protection despite a partner's false accusations. Although only one person's actions aligned with the last emerging theme it is included here because it was found in the larger data set and further research with same-sex couples could reveal more observations of this theme. Due to the exploratory nature of this work the authors chose the word “theme”, rather than “category”, to encourage ongoing practice and research conversations informed by the lived experiences of arrested lesbians.

The three exploratory themes capture cisgender lesbians’ descriptions of the actions that led to their arrests, convictions, and court-orders to antiviolence intervention. The exploratory themes emerged from contextual analysis of the women's own words and, subsequently, provide a framework for bringing attention to and further considering the fourteen lesbians’ descriptions of the actions that brought them to police attention and how they may shape practice and research. The themes challenge a one-size-fits all approach to understanding lesbian CLS involvement due to IPV/A. By centering the women's words through these exploratory themes, the authors encourage ongoing research and practice conversations and considerations rather than conclusions.

Findings and Discussion

⁹The women's descriptions of the actions that led to their arrests and court-orders to AVI are discussed within three exploratory themes that were deductively and inductively derived, aggressive use of force and intimate betrayal, self-defense and systems betrayal, and protection despite a partner's false accusations. Framing the women's descriptions within the three exploratory themes is meant to encourage and inform conversations regarding arrest, conviction, assessment, AVIs, and intimate as well as systems betrayal. Although this data does not incorporate the women's possible domestic and sexual survivorship histories, it has been established that women who have resorted to using force often disclose extensive domestic and sexual violence survivorship histories during the support and intervention process (Gardner, 2009; Larance, 2024b; Larance & Miller, 2017; Larance & Rousson, 2016; Scaia, 2017). Therefore, the aggressive use of force and intimate betrayal, self-defense and systems betrayal, and protection despite a partner's false accusations exploratory themes are intended to bring visibility to the self-described actions used by lesbians that resulted in their arrests and court-orders to AVI.

Aggressive Use of Force and Intimate Betrayal

Seven of the fourteen women's descriptions of the actions that resulted in their arrest and court-order to intervention suggest aggressive use of force and intimate betrayal. Aggressive use of force is “use of force in the presenting situation (which led to her arrest) and not mentioning or giving any indication during the intake assessment…of a history of abuse by a past and/or present partner” (Larance & Miller, 2017, p. 1158). Intimate betrayal is emotional injury inflicted from a partner or former partner that can be experienced as far more personal and painful than systems-inflicted betrayal (Larance, 2024b). Nada, Nora, Sharrod, and Rochelle describe the actions that led to their arrests and court-orders to intervention as follows:

Nada (Black, 24 years old): I saw my ex-girlfriend when I was out with somebody else. We got into it about some bills that hadn’t been paid. I hit her. She hit me but only I got arrested.

Nora (Native American, 19 years old): I saw my ex-girlfriend at [a college] football game but I acted like I didn’t see her. She came up and asked me why I ignored her and I told her because I didn’t like her and wasn’t going to acknowledge her. When I turned around to walk the other way, I felt someone nudge me on my back. I assumed it was her, so I turned around and punched her in the neck. The campus police saw so I got arrested.

Sharrod (Black, 25 years old): The night of the incident my girlfriend came home with a hickey on her neck. We got into it because I said she was cheating on me. I grabbed her and I hit her. Two of her aunts got in there and started choking me. I got arrested because of the marks on her.

Rochelle (White, 25 years old): This is my first lesbian relationship. I was trying to clean off some CDs after I spilled pop on them. My partner tried to take the CDs from me, so I grabbed her arm and got physical. She told me I had to come here [to intervention] or she would end the relationship.

Nada, Nora, Sharrod, and Rochelle's descriptions highlight their aggressive use of force, but also suggest feeling emotionally injured, which may indicate intimate betrayal; Nada's partner's unpaid bills, Nora wanting space, Sharrod seeing her partner's hickey, and Rochelle's partner trying to take the CDs. This betrayal may be especially compounded for the racially marginalized women whose coercively controlling partners gaslight (Sweet, 2019) them during a police response (Larance, 2024a). Therefore women who are already often held to a different standard by responding police officers (Duhaney, 2017; Potter, 2006; Richie & Eife, 2021), are at increased risk of being arrested through the manipulation of their abusive partners. These feelings may have been particularly complex for Rochelle who was not only arrested, convicted, and court-ordered to AVI, but given the ultimatum by her partner to complete intervention.

Self-Defense and Systems Betrayal

Six of the fourteen women described their actions as self-defensive. Self-defense is defined as “physically defending themselves or fighting back to protect themselves and/or their children when they perceived imminent abuse, or their partner was physically attempting and/or actively assaulting them” (Larance & Miller, 2017, p. 1547). To bring visibility to this evolving theme, we highlight LaTonya, Delphia, and Remie's descriptions:

LaTonya (Black, 20 years old): It was the first time I had used force on her. She routinely hits me and this was unfair, unfair that I got arrested. We argued this time when I told her my ex-girlfriend was going to be taking me to school because I don’t have gas money. She was furious! She threw things at me and screamed at me. Then she started cutting me and ran out of the apartment [holding her baby] chasing after me. I couldn’t take it anymore and turned around and hit her back and she dropped her baby and that's what the cops saw. They saw me hit her and her drop her baby.

Delphia (Black, 25 years old): My ex-fiancée and I got into an altercation. I was hit two times prior to pushing my fiancée back. She left our home. I sat at home for essentially 2–3 hours prior to the police knocking on the door. I allowed them in and I told them what happened. They said that “someone” had to be arrested and I just so happened to be the “someone.”

Remie (White, 30 years old): My girlfriend and I broke up a few months before because she relapsed, but we still lived together until this happened. We got into an argument because she brought the person she was sponsoring to our apartment. She grabbed me in the belly and I pushed her down. She called 911 and said I threatened to kill her.

LaTonya, Delphia and Remie's descriptions suggest they were defending themselves and then wrongly arrested for doing so. LaTonya's partner had a history of harming her and was cutting her at the time, Delphia's partner hit her, and Remie's girlfriend grabbed her. In addition to feeling betrayed by their intimate partners, the women also felt betrayed by responding police officers. This is evident in Delphia's description of how the officer used mandatory arrest and her presence to justify his arrest decision. Their racial identities may have also put them at additional risk of arrest.

Protection Despite a Partner's False Accusations

One of the fourteen women's actions is similar to the original theme of false accusations, “…defined as her partner embellishing events from the incident to leverage law enforcement against her and subsequently have her arrested” (Larance & Miller, 2017, p. 1549). However, Ruthie's description moves beyond the original conceptualization applied to heterosexual women because the turn of events initiated by her former partner resulted in a police response where Ruthie intentionally took responsibility for everything. Ruthie (Filipino, 24 years old) explains,

My girlfriend and I broke up about two weeks before it happened. The break-up was really hard. We had been together for about eight years, but it had gotten so bad with the way we talked to each other and so many bad feelings. We lived together and shared property, though. The day it happened I woke up from a nap and she was in my apartment. I asked her to leave, we were over. She refused so I asked her to pay me back the money she owed me and to give me back my car. She refused! I pushed her and we had a big fight. She called her sister and her sister called the police. When the cops got there, I took responsibility for everything to protect her.

Although Ruthie asked her partner to leave, Ruthie's partner refused and then indirectly initiated a police response. However, Ruthie made the decision at the time of police intervention to protect her partner by taking responsibility for the entire incident. Ruthie's choice meant that she, rather than her partner, was arrested. Although Ruthie's description of the events that led to her arrest is the only narrative data for this exploratory theme, the authors include it in this work to encourage practitioner and researcher conversations. The authors also hope that Ruthie's description will raise awareness among practitioners and researchers that lesbians presenting for court-ordered services as systems-identified perpetrators may become involved in the legal system because they hoped to protect the person they partnered with — not because they are “perpetrators”.

The three exploratory themes framing the women's descriptions are intended to bring visibility to how lesbians described the actions that resulted in their arrests, convictions, and court-orders to intervention. The fourteen women's brief descriptions demonstrate how an incident-based violence focus falls short in understanding how gender, race, and sexuality may shape the motivation and intent for actions used in a relationship and, therefore, the interventions that follow. For example, women whose descriptions aligned with the aggressive use of force theme described their use of force in ways that suggest they were responding to their partner's intimate betrayal but may or may not have held the coercive power in the relationship. In addition, women who described their actions toward their partners as self-defensive may have been responding to a coercively controlling partner, but their descriptions do not provide further insight. In addition, their experience with systems betrayal is an important consideration for intervention. The protection despite a partner's false allegations theme highlights how Ruthie's act of protection may be overshadowed by her legal systems involvement, another important consideration in AVIs. It is also consistent with the literature regarding women of color's diverse protective strategies (Larance & Miller, 2017; Potter, 2006; Richie, 2012). Furthermore, knowing more about coercive control in Ruthie's incident could explain her taking responsibility for the incident. Nonetheless, all were likely harmed by the ripple effects of their arrests given that the CLS is ill-equipped to address the complexity of IPV/A. Counselors are uniquely positioned to receive court-ordered clients identified by the legal system as “offenders” in ways that push back on the victim-offender binary (Larance et al., 2022) and holistically address their complex relationship needs.

Illuminating the consequences of the gender paradigm can reveal how systems may replicate intimate harm in the form of coercively controlling legal and child protection systems that disproportionately impact racially marginalized, low-income women (Larance, 2024b; Morrison, 2003; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). It is important that future research center the experiences of cisgender lesbians of color to promote a deeper understanding of how the racialized identities of people from LGBTQIA + communities may shape carceral responses to their IPV/A experiences.

Considerations for Practice, Advocacy, and Research

The fourteen lesbians’ brief descriptions of the actions that brought them to CLS attention demonstrate that additional context is needed to assess for relationship risk and whether the AVI is the appropriate place to meet their needs. Thus, limitations of this work are the small sample size, the women's brief descriptions, and a population of women arrested and court-ordered to services, leaving out arrested women who were jailed. Future research is necessary to better understanding the broader context of their experiences through, for example, in-depth interviews and comparative analysis. However, the brevity of their descriptions also highlights the conundrum often faced by AVI practitioners: although tasked with assessing the women's risk and AVI appropriateness, the necessary contextual information may be missing. Because these women were court-ordered to AVI, this section builds upon the exploratory themes by bringing attention to considerations for practice, advocacy, and research.¹⁰ Future research needs to explore police perceptions of lesbians’ use of force, as they are CLS gatekeepers.

Practice: Assessment and Intervention

The presence of lesbian violence against their intimate partners is evidence that gender and sexuality cannot be relied upon for understanding who has done what to whom in a relationship. Yet, a heteronormative gender paradigm persists in AVI risk and intake assessments. Lesbians whose institutional contact is shaped by racism, sexism, and homophobia can be harmed by heteronormative assessments and interventions. In this section the authors utilize our extensive practice knowledge to encourage considerations of practices that hold promise in moving beyond the gender paradigm: critical context, language, intersectionality and coercive control, and holistic trauma-informed AVI.

Engaging critical context (Larance, 2024b; Larance et al., 2022) during assessment and intervention centers individual experiences within individual, cultural, and societal contexts. It includes: 1) incorporating Black feminist epistemology's (Collins, 2009) central tenets of focusing on marginalized women's lived experience with a belief that knowledge about their circumstances is produced through conversation; 2) applying an enhanced intersectional (Crenshaw, 1991) analysis that includes sexual identity by learning from them how their multiple identities shape their daily lives, relationships, and interactions with systems actors; 3) employing a feminist research perspective (Dobash et al., 1992; Miller, 2005) that considers a person's motivation and intent when using harmful actions and the impact of those actions; and 4), gathering a longitudinal relationship history that illuminates how a woman who has caused or allegedly caused harm, may have also been harmed (Larance & Rousson, 2016).¹¹ Critical context applies an enhanced intersectional framework to women's experiences; thus, including social determinates of health (e.g., age, education, language, culture, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity) as well as meeting people where they are in their relationships and then tailoring services as necessary. Furthermore, like Donovan and Barnes's (2020) work, critical context challenges the incident-based victim-offender binary (Larance et al., 2022) and, therefore, promotes thorough holistic assessment.

Close attention must be paid to practitioner language. For example, speaking to and about people holistically, rather than trying to identify the “victim” or the “offender,” acknowledges the unique relationship dynamics (Donovan & Barnes, 2020). Too often, CLS language is the default in AVI spaces. This language risks alienating those seeking services (see Tu & Penti, 2020), particularly when institutional betrayal is a factor, and fails to capture the human experience. Inclusive language, such as “person who caused harm” and “person who experienced harm,” may be instrumental in promoting inclusion in services.

A person providing a thorough intake assessment will not only explore how the referred person's intersectional identities may have shaped their institutional experiences but will also assess for coercive control. Intersectional identities shape how people experience power. For example, women of color often have different CLS experiences than white women. Although challenging to operationalize (Barlow et al., 2020; Brennan et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2018), assessing for coercive control will include questions regarding the referred person's disclosures of fear and dread, particularly in light of the CLS’ racial bias (Richie et al., 2021). Whereas a person's fear is subjective and may not provide a reliable indicator of their actual risk of being harmed or harming others, asking questions about dread brings the assessor closer to understanding who, if anyone, exercises the coercive power in the relationship (Larance, 2024b). This process is fundamental to assessing relationship safety and whether the court-order to AVI was inappropriate (she used self-defense) or appropriate (her use of force is an aspect of harming her partner and she is not using self-defense). The Coral Project Power, Control and Space for Reaction Wheel (Donovan & Barnes, 2020) can facilitate the risk assessment and program assessment processes by facilitating a referred person's understanding of both how their intersectional identities shape their access to power and who holds the coercive control in their relationship.

Trauma-informed cofacilitated AVI groups have the capacity to offer court-ordered participants opportunities to make connections, reduce personal shame resulting from intimate and institutional betrayal, and gain important information to make choices for themselves and their relationships (Larance, 2024b; Miller, 2005). However, placing lesbians in groups primarily populated by and designed for women in heterosexual relationships may undermine such opportunities. For example, lesbians may feel physically and emotionally uncomfortable, constrained by a heteronormative dialogue that excludes their experiences. Furthermore, placing court-ordered women in individual sessions due to their minoritized sexual identity potentially denies them of the benefits groups may offer. Instead, providing lesbians AVI group access that promotes unsurveilled, trauma-informed support while utilizing curricula specifically designed to meet the group members’ needs, is fundamental to counselors challenging and dismantling the gender paradigm and the reliance on the carceral system. Program philosophy, curricula, and tools should intentionally move beyond a focus on heterosexual relationship power dynamics.¹² Instead, intervention must be grounded in a complex understanding of how people of diverse identities exist within systems of power, such as racism and homophobia, that shape their lived experiences. Collins's (2009) matrix of domination and Bronfenbrenner's (1977) ecological nested approach offer promising frameworks. Furthermore, examples of community-based interventions that support the needs of people who have caused harm to their (former or current) partners offer guidance for future work (see https://growinganewheart.org/ and https://wildfloweralliance.org/).

Advocacy

AVIs must cultivate and promote relationships with community-based organizations serving the needs of LGBTQIA + communities. Through collaboration, women currently in AVI groups can receive services tailored to their needs. Over the long term such collaborations will be instrumental in educating law enforcement officers on the front lines of making arrest decisions about the dynamics of lesbian relationships, with the goals of ending wrongful arrest and reliance on law enforcement to address intimate harm.

Research

Researchers must focus on understanding the perspectives and needs of diverse lesbians who have harmed their partners, in addition to other members of LGBTQIA + communities. For example, understanding how lesbians experience AVI group dynamics will contribute to holistic program design and delivery. This is a challenging task given the historical framing and social stigma but critical to developing appropriate interventions as well as liberation and equality. It must be done in tandem with anti-oppressive systems that promote health and well-being rather than carceral approaches to interventions that, themselves, may be ill-suited to the populations served.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lisa Young Larance

Notes

Author Biographies

Lisa Young Larance is an assistant professor of Social Work and Social Research. Her work focuses on diverse systems involved people, intimate and institutional harm, personal agency, and social capital.

Susan L. Miller is a professor in Sociology and Criminal Justice. Her work focuses on gender-based violence, justice-involved women, victims' rights, restorative justice, gender and criminal justice policy.

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Lesbians’ Descriptions of the Actions that Led to Their Arrests and Court-Orders to Antiviolence Intervention: Practice,Advocacy,and Research Considerations

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Historical Context

Carceral Responses: Mandatory Arrest

Court-Ordered Antiviolence Intervention and the Gender Paradigm

IPV/A and Coercive Control in Lesbian Relationships

Intersectionality and Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse

Methodology

Data Analysis

Findings and Discussion

Aggressive Use of Force and Intimate Betrayal

Self-Defense and Systems Betrayal

Protection Despite a Partner's False Accusations

Considerations for Practice, Advocacy, and Research

Practice: Assessment and Intervention

Advocacy

Research

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author Biographies

References