The Relationship Between Childhood Gender Nonconformity and Experiencing Diverse Types of Homophobic Violence

Experiences of homophobic violence seem to differ for various sexual-minority subgroups. Previous research has outlined that experiences differ for men and women, and for gender conforming and nonconforming lesbian, gay, and bisexual men and women (LGBs). In this article, these relationships are studied by making a distinction between four types of homophobic violence: verbal, physical, material, and sexual. In 2013, an online survey was designed to ask Flemish LGBs about their experiences of homophobic violence. The final sample consists of 1,402 Flemish sexual-minority individuals. The results show that gay and bisexual men experienced significantly more physical, material, and sexual violence during their lifetime than lesbian and bisexual women did. Moreover, LGBs who reported more childhood gender nonconformity also reported more homophobic violence, and this positive relationship is confirmed for the four forms of violence. For verbal and physical violence, however, the relationship between childhood gender nonconformity and violence varies according to the gender of the respondents. This relationship is much stronger for gay and bisexual men than for lesbian and bisexual women.