In October of 1997, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Domestic Violence, the first-ever national report on LGBT intimate partner violence in the United States. At that time, 21 states had enforceable sodomy laws, which made it illegal to engage in consensual same-gender sexual activity, 7 states explicitly did not recognize domestic violence between people of the same gender, and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994, the federal law which provided billions of dollars of funding to support life-saving responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, was still in its infancy and years away from supporting LGBTQH survivors of domestic violence. In the fifteen years since that first release of NCAVP’s groundbreaking report, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected (LGBTQH) survivors of intimate partner violence have gone from being virtually invisible and silenced in both the LGBTQH movement and the intimate partner violence movement, to being featured stories in national media outlets, and at the center of national political debates about domestic violence services for survivors.
