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Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a pattern of coercive behaviors that includes one or more of the following: physical abuse or the threat of physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual assault, progressive social isolation, deprivation, intimidation, and/or economic coercion. IPV is perpetrated against current or former intimate partners with whom the perpetrator dated, engaged in a chiefly sexual relationship, married, or cohabited.

Adults and adolescents can perpetrate IPV or be survivors of IPV..

Learn about some of the myths and truths about Intimate Partner Violence among LGBTQ individuals on our Myths page.

Different Kinds of Abuse Can Happen in Relationships

Abuse can include physical, emotional, sexual, or economic abuse, as well as threats, intimidation, and isolation. For LGBTQ people in relationships, an abusing partner may also use the weapons of heterosexism and homophobia and threaten to "out" an abused partner in situations where the abused is not out.

Intimate Partner Violence happens in every part of our community, to people of every race, ethnicity, class, age, ability or disability, education level, and religion.

Intimate Partner Violence is a crime.

There Are Different Kinds of Abuse

Physical abuse: Hitting, choking, slapping, burning, shoving, hitting with objects/using a weapon, or restraining.

Restricting freedom: Controlling whom you can see, what groups or organizations you can be in, what you can read or know about, what movies you can see, where you can go.

Emotional abuse: Criticizing you, humiliating you, lying to you, neglecting you, causing you to feel degraded.

Threats and intimidation: Threatening to harm children, family, friends, or pets. Threatening to report your sexual identity, HIV or citizenship status to the authorities or others.

Economic abuse: Taking control of your money or stealing it, running up debts, making you dependent against your will.

Sexual abuse: Forcing sex or certain sex acts, forcing sex with others, assaulting parts of your body, withholding sex, criticizing sexual performance, refusing safer sex, disrespecting "safe words" or violating boundaries of a "scene."

Destruction of property: Damaging personal objects or clothing, overturning or breaking furniture, vandalizing the home, throwing or smashing things, destroying clothes.

HIV-related abuse: Getting in the way of medical treatment, withholding medications, destroying important documents, threatening to reveal HIV status to friends, family, employers, immigration or governmental authorities.

Heterosexist control: Threatening to "out" you to others in situations where you have chosen not to come out or feel it is unsafe to do so.