Domestic Violence is Inherently Communal
Tags: LGBTQ, Covid 19, Equality, Relationships, Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence is Inherently Communal

The public side of private abuse, as told by a trans survivor

[A person faces away from the camera, silhouetted against a bright window.] Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

Back then

I lived with my then-partner on the second floor of an apartment complex. I still remember the unit number. The tenants who lived above us fought regularly, probably at about the same frequency that we did. Sometimes we fought at the same time.

That was three years ago now. I still remember hearing those shouting voices because they suggested that I was surrounded by danger, both within and around my home. I can’t know if their conflict was violent or abusive, but ours was. The expanded shroud of aggression made it more difficult to imagine an escape. Appropriately, it was nearing winter, and, outside too there was only foreboding.

I have been thinking about this as I know that Covid-19 restrictions have meant so many domestic violence victims are now trapped at home with their abusers. These events are also on my mind this month because a couple of weeks ago marked the anniversary of my first testosterone injection.

In December 2017, on the way home from my food service job, I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up the prescription. I was grateful that the pharmacist offered to show me how to use the syringe and needle. He also gave me a vial of saline to practice drawing up with. Then, I sat at the kitchen table in an unsafe home, next to an unsafe person, and began my physical transition. I was terrified of needles, but they were hardly the most frightening thing in the room.

A few months prior, I had started attending a transgender support group. I met a number of friends there, and today my social circle remains largely based on the connections I made then. My new friends were curious to hear about how my straight partner was handling my coming out and transition. I told them the truth as I believed it: we were doing going well, all things considered. Most people saw right through these last three words, as I now know they should have.

The ‘all things considered’ referred to my knowledge that many trans people’s partners leave, or threaten to do so, soon after the moment of coming out. It was this context that told me I should be grateful he didn’t see my gender or transition as a reason to leave me. At least on the surface, my partner was not only accepting but actively supportive. I felt lucky. My appreciation was only compounded by hearing more than one cisgender person assume that we must have broken up after I came out. But we were closer, better, than those expectations. Appreciation, however, soon morphed into indebtedness. He was doing me a favor by staying, and I needed to prove I was worth it.

Outside in

Below his support about my gender, however, lurked repeated coercion, control, and intimidation. At least I had been exposed to enough relationship knowledge—the Me Too movement was especially poignant and happened to be exploding at this exact time — to know that what I was experiencing was abuse. At least I knew it was something I didn’t deserve, because no one could deserve it. That didn’t stop me from telling myself it was my job to solve the problem of his behavior. Failing at this self-assigned task didn’t feel like an option.

Maybe I knew that the real onus was on him, but I still sensed I would feel the biggest letdown after our potential breakup. After all, he was a conventionally attractive straight cisgender man. I was a trans person whose body soon wouldn’t be legible by the presumptive binaries.

My fear about dating while trans was only one external factor that compounded the challenge of leaving the relationship. There was also the fact that this person was extremely likable. Every family member who met him conveyed their positive impression. I could see their faces light up any time they heard him describe the degree he would soon be receiving from a prestigious university. Then they would turn to me with a smile, if not direct words, that said I had landed someone quite excellent.

I never introduced him to any of my friends that fall. Because I was just coming out, I craved time among only my trans friends. I also subconsciously feared how much they would like him if they met him. His charm would allay any suspicions they might’ve had, based on my ‘all things considered’ addendums, about how he was treating me. And maybe they’d trust me less if I ever told them what was happening.

A couple of years prior to these events, and before Me Too, I had read John Krakauer’s Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. Through this book, and through many more informal and subliminal channels, I learned that women (which I entered the relationship, and still presented, as) were not likely to be believed when accusing a male partner of abuse. I knew enough to know what was happening to me, which also meant I knew better than to be hopeful about the fallout.

Concerns confirmed

More so than not, my concerns came to fruition. As a trans person, dating has been much more perplexing than it had been as a cisgender woman. The reactions to our breakup were also less than ideal. Upon hearing the news, one person commented that I should’ve given my partner more time to process my coming out and transition. The comment implied that it was my fault for expecting too much of him, as if he, and not I, was the one going through a major life change.

When I briefly got back together with this person a few months later, I finally did introduce him to a few friends. After the introduction, one person made a point of telling me how much they liked him. I don’t recall whether they knew about our history or not, but it did continue to reinforce the nagging idea that hidden behind a temporary aura of danger was the ‘true’ version of him that was worth staying with. In retrospect, the danger was legitimate and lasting, only transmuted by the rose-colored spotlight shining out of my friends’ and family’s eyes.

Domestic violence is already known for its invisibility to outsiders. As a result, it is typically portrayed as a solely private problem resulting from the flawed dynamic between people who share a household.

Consider, however, that what happens at home is constantly influenced by what’s goes on outside of it: be it the altercations between the people who live above you, or society’s ongoing refusal to believe victims, especially when the victim is perceived as less desirable than the perpetrator.

What we all say and do matters

This month, I’m also thinking about how actor Elliot Page has just come out to the world as transgender. A lot of love has flowed out (especially from other trans people), but the hate has also arrived in droves. I’m thinking about how the way that I perceive other trans people’s worthiness directly impacts how I perceive my own.

Believing victims of abuse has been a crucial goal (and outcome, I think) of Me Too. But we aren’t thinking deeply enough if we ignore the wider problem of how internalized bigotry— transphobia, racism, homophobia, ableism, ageism, to name a few possibilities — affects victims. There are countless people in the U.S. alone who are regularly bombarded with messages of their inhumanity.

Speaking from experience, self-worth is crucial to one’s ability to escape a dangerous situation. We first have to believe that we don’t deserve to be harmed. This can be difficult to accept, however, when people around us are content to live in — or even actively strive to create — a world where we face danger in a general and sweeping sense.

There is no way I would ever relieve my abuser of the blame for what he did. The fact is, however, that the world around me made dealing with the effects of his behavior much more difficult. I know I stayed longer than I would’ve if I had not known I was trans. And I know that the idealism of him, reinforced by others’ opinions, pushed me to try more desperately to make him change.

At the time, that relationship was the only steady part of my life. I was working two stressful jobs, figuring out how to come out at both, and had just started hormones. Stability was in very short order. I didn’t have the capacity to lose my home and the only close relationship I had maintained throughout college. I could not bear the idea of facing alone the chaos that had become my adult life. But, somehow, I did.

Over the course of our romantic relationship, my self-worth had become intertwined with my ability to make him love me. I needed his approval and reassurance, because alone in my own head I was unable to believe in my value. If I had grown up in a world that affirmed trans people, I would’ve had that self-love already deep inside. This is one of the many reasons why it matters that we vocally support trans folks— and all marginalized people— vocally and publicly, socially and structurally. Helping victims of domestic violence starts with demonstrating the innate value of our lives.

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If you learned from or otherwise appreciated this essay, and are able, please donate to Trans Lifeline. If you are transgender and would like to talk to another trans person you can call (877) 565–8860 in the U.S. or

(877) 330–6366 in Canada.