Transgender and gender-nonconforming public transit riders in Portland, Oregon experience discrimination, harassment, and violence from transit staff and riders. Nondiscrimination policies may be helpful toward increasing riders’ safety whereas armed transit police are not recommended.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals historically receive less attention in terms of intimate partner violence services and support than cisgender, heterosexual female victims. This bias is reflected in national data that tend to omit information on sexual orientation and gender identity or that only capture current intimate partner gender. As a result, bisexual IPV victims are overlooked or misclassified as heterosexual or lesbian.
Domestic violence service delivery emerged from feminist values and principles around empowerment and self-determination within a larger feminist analysis of systemic gender oppression in both the so-called public and private spheres.
Rather than continuing to put money, time, and effort into the criminal legal system which has failed to deter intimate partner violence, IPV policy should center economic, community, and public health solutions. Such solutions shift the focus of IPV policy from reaction to prevention and provide justice for people unwilling or unable to turn safely to state-based criminal punishment systems.
Most young people become ‘sex trafficking victims’ due to poverty, racism, transphobia, and homophobia. Arresting ‘pimps’, and young people, won’t solve these problems.
