Gender and Sexuality, Bias, and Sexual Violence

Prejudices, misconceptions, and general ideas around gender and sexuality can have an impact on experiences of sexual violence. It’s important to understand the ways homophobia and transphobia can inform experiences of sexual violence because these impact the way others respond by providing or withholding support. These biases are present when people assume the gender of a person who used offending behaviour, or assume the sexuality of the person who experienced harm because of who their offender was. Biases create barriers and keep people from feeling safe when accessing support services.

Definitions

Queer and trans people are disproportionately targeted by people who harm with sexual violence, and often experience additional harm through homophobia and/or transphobia in their experiences of sexual violence. At the same time, it’s not only 2SLGBTQ+ individuals who are harmed by these additional forms of violence. When it comes to sexual assault or abuse, straight and cis people are sometimes harmed by someone of the same gender, and can experience bias or prejudice when disclosing about their abuse. It’s also important to recognize that often people who harm someone of the same gender are themselves heterosexual.

Sexual assault has nothing to do with sexual preference

Committing sexual assault/abuse is motivated by a wish to assert power and control over another person. This motivation explains why it is the people who are considered the most vulnerable or marginalized in our society, including 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, who are disproportionately targeted with this form of violence. While there is a persistent myth or assumption that these things will line up with sexual preference, sexual violence is not about sexual attraction or sexual orientation. A person who experienced sexual violence has experienced a trauma that has nothing to do with their sexual or romantic attractions.

Sexual violence is about power and control

A defining quality of sex is that it needs to be consensual. Any sexual activity that is not consensual is no longer sex – it is sexual assault/abuse. Consent is clear, voluntary, mutual and enthusiastic, ongoing and act specific, and sober. Sexual assault is not actually about sex — it’s about power and control.

Control

When someone uses sexual language, imagery, body parts, and/or contact to harm another person, they are denying that person the ability to set their own sexual boundaries and decide what happens to their body. Denying someone the right to make decisions over their own body and boundaries is an act of control. Whether or not the person causing harm experienced pleasure or was intentional in causing harm does not influence whether or not it was in fact sexual violence.

Example: If someone uses a baseball bat to hit someone over the head, you wouldn’t call that playing baseball. If someone uses sexual contact to sexually assault someone, that shouldn’t be called having sex.

Power

Sexual violence happens when power is used to coerce (pressure, deceive, intimidate, manipulate, blackmail, and/or guilt) or to physically force a person in order to restrict their ability to control their body.

Forms of power include:

Bodies respond instinctively

Sexual violence can feel confusing for those who have experienced harm because bodies often respond to violence in unexpected ways. When our nerves are engaged by the senses (i.e. we see, hear, smell, taste, or feel something) they will respond instinctively. This response might be opposite to how a person feels about what is happening to their body. For this reason, during sexual violence an erection, natural lubrication, and orgasm may all occur. None of these physical body responses are an indication that the person wanted or enjoyed what happened.

So how does gender connect to sexual violence?

People of all gender identities can experience sexual violence, and they can all cause harm using sexual violence. However, people who are trans and non-binary are harmed by sexual violence at rates that are disproportionately high compared to people who are cis. While studies have consistently shown sexual violence happens more often against trans and non-binary individuals, a barrier in bringing attention to this issue comes from the bias that can be reflected in the studies themselves: many of the studies only have the options “female” and “male” when asking about gender, and people who don’t fit into one of these two categories are either put into a gender category that does not reflect their identity, or removed from the study entirely. (For more on this, read our article on understanding the statistics). What we know is that the number is higher because sexual violence is an abuse of power in a system that marginalizes anyone who doesn’t fit the identities that are centered: straight, cis, white, able-bodied, man, and so on. Sexual violence can be additionally impactful for people who are trans and non-binary for a number of reasons: the violence may be an act of transphobia; it may increase gender dysphoria; correcting misgendering and exploring or expressing gender through clothing/hair/makeup/etc. may feel unsafe; there may be new or heightened fears of openly identifying as trans or non-binary; and reporting to the police may be unsafe.

Despite being targeted for violence at such high rates, trans and non-binary individuals are provided fewer social supports. As well, the supports that do exist can be unsafe to access due to lack of provider knowledge, transphobia, misgendering, gendering of services, and inaccessible spaces. Trans and non-binary individuals who experience sexual violence need and deserve more services that uphold their experiences as deserving of belief and care. There are fortunately a number of services throughout the city and province that do provide services for trans and non-binary individuals. All of the programming at SACE is inclusive of trans and non-binary clients, however our new counselling group, refleQT, is designed specifically for queer and trans clients to access if preferred.

What role does sexual orientation have in sexual violence?

Sexual violence can also be experienced and inflicted by people of all sexual orientations. The sexual orientation of a person who experienced harm cannot be assumed by the gender or sexual orientation of the person who harmed them. As we’ve covered before, sexual violence happens between people of all genders and sexual orientations, and has nothing to do with romantic or sexual attraction.

While this is true, sometimes after experiencing sexual violence, people have questions and worries about what the gender or sexual orientation of the person who harmed them means about their own gender or sexual orientation. It’s important to know that there is no definitive or proven impact of sexual violence on sexual orientation or gender. Sexual violence does not compromise your sexual orientation or gender identity.

There can be additional barriers for accessing support if someone fears that their sexual orientation or gender identity are compromised, or questions the validity of their experience because of the gender or sexual orientation of the person who harmed them. All people who experience sexual violence are deserving of support — the gender or sexual orientation of the person who harmed them doesn’t change that. Questions about identity after experiencing sexual violence are not uncommon. It is valid to want to explore these questions and counselling can be one way of doing that exploration in a supported setting.

How you can help

If someone discloses that they were sexually assaulted or abused, don’t make assumptions. Listen, believe what the person is telling you about their experience, and find ways to support them. SACE has printable 1-pagers on supporting an adult and supporting a child or youth with helpful guidance on this.

Don’t assume the person’s sexual orientation, or their gender– and don’t make those assumptions about the person who sexually assaulted them. By using neutral language until you hear what language to use from the person you’re supporting, and letting them take the lead in telling you only what they feel comfortable disclosing, you are letting them have the control over their own experience and story– a simple yet powerful way for someone who has experienced sexual violence to regain or assert their own boundaries and will. You are also letting them know that you are leaving space for whatever their experience might have been, and this can help people to feel safer about not being judged.

Another powerful way to be an ally to people of all genders and sexualities who have experienced sexual violence (and in general!) is to stay aware of these issues, and hold others accountable for their problematic language, assumptions, or behaviours when you witness them. It’s important that you feel safe to do so, but even small interruptions can make a difference: things like explaining what you find problematic, telling someone it’s not funny, deflecting or shifting their attention to separate them from someone being harmed, or even just not laughing at or validating a comment, can let someone know that you don’t support that way of thinking or behaving. You can learn more about the basics with our bystander intervention handout, or contact SACE at ac.ecasobfsctd@noitacude to ask about training opportunities.