Parents are often surprised to find that teens can be in gay and lesbian relationships, and that battering can take place in those relationships. Many of these teens do not tell their parents about either their relationships or the battering. When teens are not being open about who they are dating, they are more likely to keep problems with violence a secret. They are also more likely to keep their relationships secret from their peers. The fear of homophobic reactions from parents, peers, and others results in isolation. So a teen may have no one to confide in about a problem with violence in his or her relationship. Jeffrey’s story portrays one teen’s efforts to overcome this.
My name is Jeffrey, and I just turned twenty-one. I was eighteen years old when I started dating Bob, who was twenty-eight. I lived with my mother, and I knew I couldn’t tell her about my relationship with Bob. There were no other adults in my life. We lived in a small town far away from the rest of the family. Mostly, I talked to my straight friends in high school. I was the only out person, and my friends were cool about it.
Bob was abusive. It was psychological at first, then it became physical. He dominated me. I was mentally brainwashed. There were certain things I couldn’t do, because if I did I was in big trouble. If he was supposed to pick me up at seven, I had to be ready at 7:00, not 6:55 or 7:05, or he’d explode. If he didn’t like what I was wearing, he’d tell me all day how awful I looked. I tried very hard not to make him angry. After a while, I fought back verbally, and I harped on him. When he would hit me, I’d fight back, get a few punches in. I wouldn’t just stand there and let a man hit me. But he was bigger and older than me, and it would escalate. It didn’t do any good to defend myself physically. Several times, I called the police. They didn’t do anything. I thought they were making fun of me.
My mom was into her own stuff. She was dating and got married. She was busy. She didn’t want to believe I was gay. She saw me with a black eye and thought something must have happened in school. So she asked me, “How was school?” I said, “You don’t want to know.” And she didn’t. She never tried to find out. She knows now, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.
My friends were the ones who helped me get away from Bob. They understood me and validated me. They didn’t put words in my mouth. No “you should” or “you have to.” They helped me think about my options. They asked me, “Do you like being a slave? Do you like being punched and battered?” I got the message. They told me it was my decision. I am very grateful to them. With my friends’ support, I got strong enough to pull away and eventually break up with Bob. Bob kept pursuing me. So I got a restraining order, and he finally stayed away.
Jeffrey’s story illustrates that abuse in same-sex relationships has a lot in common with abuse in heterosexual relationships. However, it also illustrates the painful reality for teens who cannot share important aspects of their lives (for example, whom they love) with their parents, and therefore cannot approach their parents when they need support to deal with dating violence.
This leads to a teen feeling isolated. Gay and lesbian teen relationships are often “invisible.” Parents, friends, and other people don’t notice the warning signs of abuse or violence because they don’t notice the relationship. If a teen is bisexual, and dating both boys and girls, a parent may know nothing about the same-sex relationship. Some people do not consider the possibility that two girls or two boys may be intensely involved or in love. In recent years, there has been greater acknowledgment and acceptance of same-sex relationships, which may be easing some of this isolation and invisibility.
Parents often have difficulty recognizing and accepting that their child might be lesbian, gay, or bisexual. It is understandable that some teens keep these relationships secret from their parents. They are afraid of being rejected, abused, or humiliated. Even though some teens who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender experience acceptance and support from their families, other teens have been thrown out or have run away because of their parents’ severe reactions.
Marion’s story illustrates how difficult this situation can be for parents.
Marion noticed that her seventeen-year-old daughter, Suzanne, was beginning to change. Suzanne was spending more and more time with her best friend, Melissa. They were inseparable. Marion said:
I noticed that they were fighting a lot. Suzanne would come home late, after her curfew, usually in tears. Then she wouldn’t get up in the morning until just as I was leaving for work. I suspected that she wasn’t going to school, so I called and found out she was absent ten days that month and had been forging my signature on notes.
I confronted her about school. I was already worried about this friendship because she was constantly upset, and now this. I told her I thought Melissa was a bad influence on her. Suzanne promised to straighten things out with Melissa and not to miss any more school.
About a month later, we were shopping for clothes and I noticed bruises on her arm and scratches on her back. I was alarmed and asked her, “Who did this to you?” Suzanne then told me that Melissa was more than a friend: They had been “involved” for six months. Suzanne said she was in love with her, but Melissa often got drunk and jealous and pushed her around.
This whole thing was very hard for me. I didn’t know what to think. She was so unhappy. I didn’t know if it was just Melissa, or if this was what her life was going to be like.
The night that Suzanne came home with bruises on her face, I wasn’t confused anymore. I told her, “This is getting worse. You need help.” She told me, sobbing, that she had been trying to break up with Melissa. Then I realized that Suzanne was trapped. She couldn’t get away from her. I’d heard about this with married couples, but at her age! And with a girl! This I couldn’t believe. So I started getting information. She needed my help. No one could tell me about girls who batter other girls, but I found out what we needed to do. Suzanne was torn, afraid to hurt Melissa, but she was so relieved to have some support to get out of the relationship.
Now I see Suzanne with another girlfriend, a really lovely girl. I don’t know if she’s going to want this—what is the word?—“lifestyle” for the rest of her life. Maybe she can be happy, but I’m sure glad she had the strength to get away from Melissa.
Many teens feel positive about their sexual orientation, and many are flexible about their sexuality. They may be open to any romantic relationship, regardless of gender. As the norms in society and in teen culture are changing, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their relationships are becoming more accepted.
The patterns in violent same-sex relationships are similar to those in violent straight relationships. They consist of emotionally, physically, and sexually violent behavior. The cycle of violence is the same. The motivation behind the use of violence by gay or lesbian batterers, as with straight batterers, is to maintain power and control over the other person. Abusers may use the myth of mutual abuse: “You yelled at me, so you’re as abusive as I am.”
The isolation that is so often part of any battering situation is complicated and worsened by the isolation imposed by the secrecy of a same-sex relationship. The battering same-sex relationship also becomes insular as the couple keeps their secrets, and as they rely more and more on each other to defend themselves against anyone finding out about them. In addition, to control the boyfriend or girlfriend, the abuser may threaten to “out” his or her victim—to tell others, including parents, about their relationship or that the victim is gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Sometimes teens feel that they are being punished because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, and they feel that they deserve the abuse. Sometimes the abuser tells them this as well. This makes victims vulnerable and traps them in the abusive relationship.
With recent gains in the areas of same-sex marriage and equality laws, teens have more opportunities to see examples of happy, well-adjusted lesbians and gay men in relationships. However, some teens in same-sex relationships may have few norms or role models, or grow up around very negative attitudes about homosexuality, which can be confusing for them. They may assume that the abuse is part of gay and lesbian relationships because they don’t have other options until they have more exposure to healthy same-sex relationships.
Teens going through the process of coming out may have mixed feelings about themselves and how they fit in socially. They may struggle with denial about being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender; feel socially isolated; despise themselves; hide their true feelings from others; and fear rejection and violence. It becomes even harder for teens to develop positive feelings about their sexual identities while being hit, manipulated, and emotionally battered in a relationship.
Parents have their own issues to confront about their teen’s same-sex relationships. Like Marion, you may only find out that your teen is gay, lesbian, or bisexual when you find out about the abuse. Then your reactions to learning both “secrets” at the same time become intertwined. Some parents react with negativity about same-sex relationships, assuming that they are immoral or dysfunctional. They may not take their teen’s relationship seriously, seeing it as a “phase” that he or she will outgrow.
Parents might focus on their teen’s homosexuality rather than the abuse, trying to change their teen’s sexual orientation rather than help him or her deal with the violence. For example, when sixteen-year-old Elizabeth was stressed or bruised, her family wondered out loud why she put up with her friend’s bullying. But they never asked about the relationship or confronted her about the violence until her father found a love letter Elizabeth’s girlfriend had written to her. Then they became furious, punished her, and forbade her from seeing her girlfriend.
In addition to the other suggestions in this book, parents will find it helpful to obtain as much information specific to gay teens as they can find. Find out about organizations and agencies in their community that offer resources for gay teens and their parents. Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) conducts support groups for parents in communities all over the United States. LGBT adults they know can also offer support and information, or can provide positive examples of healthy relationships or the coming-out process.
It is important to reach out and ask questions, even if a teen projects an attitude that it is none of their parents’ business. LGBT teens have told us that one of the hardest aspects of being in an abusive relationship has been the isolation. As Jeffrey said, having nonjudgmental people close to him who encouraged him to make healthy decisions made a difference in his getting away from his batterer. In order to help, parents may have to put judgments about their teen’s sexuality aside. Overcoming any negative feelings they may have about homosexuality could take time, but it is not necessary to wait for that to happen before helping their teen become safe from violence. Whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, their teen needs their support to deal with a violent relationship. It is not helpful or effective to let negative attitudes about their teen’s sexuality interfere with the support he or she needs.