Ain’t I a victim? A study of how Swedish organizations and authorities support lesbian victims of intimate partner violence

Sammanfattning

Internationally there has been a reluctance to recognize the issue of IPV (intimate partnerviolence) in lesbian relationships up until the 2000s, even though it was exposed in the 1980sand in Sweden it remains an under-researched topic. The aim of this study is to investigate ifand how official material in Sweden includes lesbian IPV in their documents and policies.This might shed light on the knowledge that help providers have or don’t have on the subject.Qualitative content analysis of official and governmental texts and two interviews with helpproviders working at Roks (National organization for women’s and girl’s shelters in Sweden)is the method used and intersectionality and critique of heteronormativity is the theoreticalframework. The main findings are: 1) the information and knowledge presented in the officialand governmental texts is insufficient 2) heteronormativity is heavily present in the way thatlesbian IPV is written about and there is a lack of intersectional perspectives and 3) there is arisk of victim reproduction depending on how lesbian IPV is talked about but it is alsoimportant to talk about it specifically, since using gender neutral language to includeeveryone risk erasing lesbians and other minorities.