Intrafamilial Hate Crime against Gay Men and Lesbians

• In Event: Challenging Heteronormative Framing of Sexual and Physical Violence

Abstract

As scholarship in the area of hate crime expands, new forms of this violence and new models for understanding the nuanced nature of some incidents of hate crime have begun to emerge. While popular understandings of hate crime continued to be focussed on a ‘stranger danger’ model of hate crime, in this paper, the results from a study of outlier hate crime incidents (reported to London Metropolitan Police Service) point to important links between intimate partner violence, honour-based violence and intrafamilial hate crime. In addition to being more violent, hate violence against sexual and gender diverse communities is also more likely than other forms of hate crime to be perpetrated by immediate family members. In this paper, I propose that intrafamilial hate crimes are expressed in ways that better align with honour-based violence than hate crime. As with others who experience honour-based violence, gay men and lesbians are often thought to bring the family or community into disrepute for infringing heteronormative norms and values. Employing strategies across the continuum of violence, intrafamilial hate crime aims to punish these transgressions (including the use of ‘corrective rape’), reinstate heteronormative behaviour, safeguard the family honour and ‘save face’.

Author

• Nicole L. Asquith, University of Western Sydney