One of the tasks before those of us working in the battered women's movement is to confront our own homophobia and our false assumptions about lesbian relationships and battering. Following are some examples of fairly common assumptions about lesbian relationships. Like any generalization about a group of people, these false beliefs can prove to be both painful and dangerous to the battered lesbian when unexamined and unconfronted by those of us who are here to help. Men are not victims of domestic violence, and women never batter. Such myths ignore and deny the realities of same-sex relationships.
Men can be and are victims of domestic violence.
Women can be and are batterers. Domestic violence is fundamentally a power issue. Even when two people are of the same gender, power differences exist and can be abused. Research on same-sex domestic violence can be difficult, given the fact that many of us are not comfortable being open about our relationships, let alone abusive ones. Research that has been done indicates that battering in same-sex relationships is about as common as in heterosexual relationships.