Domestic Violence Stats

[PeakPants]

Growing increasingly-tired of baseless claims being thrown around in the trans debate. The recent 'the truth' BBC article proved that when feminists use stats, we use them in a reliable and measured way. The article was meant to 'expose' what we had been saying as false, but it backed it up because we were speaking the truth.

One claim I keep hearing is 'trans women are actually at higher risk of DV than natal women, so they should definitely be allowed to use shelters and refuges'. This does not sit well with me. I have worked in this area. I know that the majority serious intimate partner violence is perpetrated by heterosexual men. The kind of men who commit these acts are not the type of people who have relationships with trans women. Therefore, if the claim were true, it would mean there was another, even more violent, subtype of people who are in relationships with trans women, yet abuse them. Many TW are attracted to women, so are we saying natal women are the perpetrators? In that case, the impact of that violence and the risk of death will not be nearly the same as where perpetrated by a natal male. Not that no women commit domestic violence- simply that it tends to be of a different type and with a different effect. Or are TW being abused by natal men? Again, it feels doubtful to me.

My guess is that the sort of DV TW might experience is more likely to relate to shared living- e.g. housemates or family. I think there is a difference between that sort of violence and violence by a partner, in terms of the emotions and repercussions. There are also other factors that may have to be taken into account which would increase the likelihood of a trans person living in an unstable shared living environment.

What I am looking for is reliable statistical information on the following:
-Numbers of trans women reporting DV to the police
-Numbers of trans women reporting DV to another agency, including a refuge
-Profile of perpetrator in the above cases (ie male/female/trans)
-Numbers of trans women accessing refuge services

If anyone has any reliable information to hand, or a link to a thread I might have missed, I would be very grateful. We have managed to debunk the myth that trans women are more likely to be murdered so I would like to get to the bottom of this one too.

I agree with absolutely every word of this. There is no statistical evidence for any of these claims. ONS/CSEW stats don't evidence it and there are no reliably peer-reviewed publications that I can find.

It's like the suicide claims and all the other claims of mass oppression .... they are very difficult to evidence because ......

Domestic violence is overwhelmingly experienced by women, and committed by men. If trans women experience it then they deserve support, but why should women give up their scant provision? Why should their safe placed become mixed sex? We are back to Be Kind And Budge Up aren't we.

Thank you Jean. I did not think there was anything reliable out there backing up the claim. I have seen some US study which was based entirely on anonymous self-reports, so this is entirely unreliable. You can hardly argue with the murder stats, can you- over 100 women a year.

Thank you again for all the amazing work you do for women, Jean and I am so sorry to hear about your illness. Life is not fair.

Pye I agree. I suspect that some of the TW seeking help from a refuge may need support of a different nature to what the women fleeing sexual and physical violence (often with their children in tow) require. Pretending they are the same helps nobody.

I agree. I think it's all coming from the US studies you mention, Peak. It makes me angry when smug little kids on Twitter glibly come out with this shit without bothering to understand the issues for women.

*Bothering to learn about rand understand

*and!

A read of the 'trans widows' thread on here gives many chilling examples of coercive control and emotional abuse being used by transitioning men against women.

Thanks, sceptical. I don't doubt it. It may not be intentional, but I have seen e.g. Jane Fae's behaviour towards women in interviews. The word 'gaslighting' springs to mind.

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11666990/Domestic-abuse-and-violence-is-not-gender-neutral.-Wake-up-Britain.htmlThis is a good article on the violence women face in the home. It is overwhelmingly a crime committed by males and females are the main victims, which is why they need to retain the safe spaces that they set up.

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11666990/Domestic-abuse-and-violence-is-not-gender-neutral.-Wake-up-Britain.html

Link above works!

Thank you Pye

Great article @Pyewacketts

Recorded crime doesn't begin to capture the scale of violence. The statistics don't include the number of assaults, woundings and threats that went before the crime that was reported.

As for domestic violence involving the T in LBGT, there ought to be some pretty robust information by now.

Since the early 1990s police forces have special mechanisms for dealing with and monitoring the police response to all crimes involving LBGT, including DV. Here's an example of such a partnership:

www.gmp.police.uk/live/Nhoodv3.nsf/triage-section.html?readform&l2=1464&l3=97455&s=C172EFE275D303568025796100404BAF

With such mechanisms and partnerships in place, you would think that there would be some pretty accurate information on the extent of domestic violence and transgender people.

My guess is that the sort of DV TW might experience is more likely to relate to shared living- e.g. housemates or family.

In the UK, the DV statistics can be very difficult to interpret because of the age-groups at which it's officially recorded and because it can include wider family members or other people in the household.

Intimate partner violence can be collected but it all tends to get confused very quickly and the point at which someone is classed as an "intimate partner" and any implication as to duration of relationship has its own set of challenges.

For such a difficult area with vast personal and financial costs for so many people, it feels ludicrous that the recorded statistics aren't clearer tho' there are some reasonable caveats around why they're tricky to collate.

arranfan this is surely an area that needs proper rigorous research before everyone just blindly accepts that it’s a fantastic idea to put trans women in female refuges. Instead the government and pressure groups have no actual figures except some vague statement that trans women experience loads of violence and seek to make policy on that basis. Mad.

PeakPants - I couldn't agree more.

There are talks by Ben Goldacre (Bad Science) and some of the fact checkers from BBC Reality Check, C4 Factcheck, and Full Fact where they discuss the quality of data collection and what is used as evidence in some areas and used to underpin huge financial decisions or 'big stories'.

It can be truly shocking. And, sadly, it's not outlandish that some "well known" and much-quoted statistics have their origin in someone's student project (like the infamous WoMD) or even an essay, or a simple assertion based on someone's impression of something back in the 70s.