Power and control, resistance and survival : a systematic review and meta-synthesis of the qualitative literature on intimate partner violence against transgender individuals

Marrow, Elliot

Power and control, resistance and survival : a systematic review and meta-synthesis of the qualitative literature on intimate partner violence against transgender individuals Elliot Marrow, Mannat Malik, David W. Pantalone and Sarah Peitzmeier - Elsevier, 2024 - Social Science & Medicine .

Social Science & Medicine, 2024, 342: 116498

Transgender (trans) individuals experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at elevated levels compared to cisgender individuals. Traditional theoretical understandings of IPV as men's patriarchal domination of women, and later, broader theories in which IPV is conceptualized as the relatively privileged partner enacting domination over the relatively oppressed partner, do not fully capture the totality of IPV experiences, including how IPV is perpetrated against trans individuals. We conducted a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis of the qualitative and theoretical literatures on IPV against trans individuals (N = 37 articles and books) to generate novel IPV theory inclusive of trans individuals' experiences. We identified five major themes: (1) societal context of IPV, (2) IPV tactics and types, (3) help-seeking, (4) consequences of IPV, and (5) proposed interventions for victims. Synthesizing across themes, we offer a novel theoretical model that demonstrates how abusers can leverage structural discrimination and vulnerabilities against trans victims, regardless of the abuser's own identities. We identify individual power and control tactics abusers use, including identifying a category of IPV that we term leveraging vulnerability, which involves abusers weaponizing their own vulnerabilities to avoid accountability. Reducing IPV in trans communities requires expanding current IPV theory to include trans victims, recognition of a wider range of abuse tactics, and structural interventions that promote the respectful treatment of trans individuals. Our theoretical model of IPV "centers the margins" to make trans victims' experiences, and indeed all victims whose experiences fall outside normative scripts, more legible. (Authors' abstract). Record #8525


EMOTIONAL ABUSE
FINANCIAL ABUSE
INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
LGBTQIA+
PHYSICAL ABUSE
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE
SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
TRANSGENDER
VICTIM/SURVIVORS' VOICES
VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE


INTERNATIONAL
UNITED STATES