Preliminary Evidence of Intimate Partner Violence-Related Head Trauma among Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adults

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant global public health concern; one in three women and one in four men report experiencing severe physical violence, which confers high risk for IPV-related head trauma (IPV-HT). Transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals are more than twice as likely to experience injuries due to physical IPV compared with their cisgender peers, yet few studies to date have assessed whether TGD individuals experience IPV-HT. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess experiences of IPV-HT among TGD adults. TGD individuals (n = 76) completed an online survey to assess experiences of abuse from an intimate partner, IPV-HT events and brain injury (IPV-BI) using the Brain Injury Screening Questionnaire (BISQ) IPV Module, and lifetime HT events and BI sustained in military service, sports, or other civilian exposures using the BISQ-7. Experiences of abuse, total IPV, and non-IPV-related blows to the head were compared across three gender identity groups: transgender women, transgender men, and other gender-diverse adults. Proportions of TGD adults endorsing IPV-HT events and IPV-BI were compared with a sample of cisgender adults (n = 142; 50 cisgender women) participating in a longitudinal BI study. Two-thirds of participants experienced at least one form of abuse from an intimate partner. Twenty-one TGD adults reported IPV-related blows to the head with a range of 1 to 40 total blows/participant. A greater proportion of TGD adults (n = 21, 32%) and cisgender women (n = 17, 34%) endorsed IPV-HT events/BI compared with cisgender men (n = 5, 5%). IPV-HT is a gender-based issue that differentially affects gender minorities, including TGD adults. The repetitive nature of IPV-HT likely has important implications for lifetime neurological health among these individuals. Future work is needed to elucidate the time course of IPV-HT events and IPV-BI exposure in relation to changes in gender expression to inform violence prevention strategies.