Power and Control in Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender Relationships

Isolation: Restricting Freedom
Controlling personal social contacts, access to information and participation in groups or organizations.  Limiting the who, what, where and when or daily life.  Restraining movement, locking partner in or out.

Intimidation
Creating fear by using looks, actions, gestures and destroying personal items, mementos or photos.  Breaking windows or furniture.  Throwing or smashing objects.  Trashing clothes, hurting or killing pets.

Economic Abuse
Controlling economic resources and how they are used.  Stealing money, credit cards or checks.  Running up debt.  Fostering total economic dependency.  Using economic status to determine relationship roles/norms, including controlling purchase of clothes, food, etc.

Physical Abuse
Slapping, hitting, shoving, biting, choking, pushing, punching, beating, kicking, stabbing, burning, pulling hair, being hit with objects, dragging or pulling, shooting or killing.  Using weapons.

Using Children
Threats or actions to take children away or have them removed.  Using children to relay messages.  Threats to or actual harm to children.  Threats to or revealing of sexual or gender orientation to children or others to jeopardize parent-child relationship, custody or relationships with family, friends, school or others.

Threats
Making physical, emotional, economic or sexual threats.  Threatening to harm family or friends.  Threatening to make a report to city, state or federal authorities that would jeopardize custody, economic situation, immigration or legal status.  Threatening suicide.

Entitlement
Treating partner as inferior; race, education, wealth, politics, class privilege or lack of, physical ability, and anti-Semitism.  Demanding that needs always come first.  Interfering with partner's job, personal needs and family obligations.

Psychological & Emotional Abuse
Criticizing constantly.  Using verbal abuse, insults and ridicule.  Undermining self-esteem.  Trying to humiliate or degrade in private or public.  Manipulating with lies and false promises.  Denying partner's reality.

HIV-Related Abuse
Threatening to reveal HIV status to others.  Blaming partner for having HIV.  Withholding medical or social services.  Telling partner she or he is "dirty."  Using illness to justify abuse.

Sexual Abuse
Forcing sex.  Forcing specific sex acts or sex with others.  Physical assaults to "sexual" body areas.  Refusing to practice safer sex.  In S&M refusing to negotiate or not respecting contract/scene limits or safe words.

Homophobia/Biphobia
A part of Heterosexism.  Using awareness of fear and hatred of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals to convince partner of danger in reaching out to others.  Controlling expression of sexual identity and connections to community.  Outing sexual identity.  Shaming.  Questioning Status as a "real" lesbian, gay man, bisexual.

Transphobia
Using fear and hatred of anyone who challenges traditional gender expression, and/or who is transsexual, to convince partner of danger in reaching out to others.  Controlling expression of gender identity and connections to community.  Outing gender identity.  Shaming.  Questioning validity of one's gender.

Heterosexism
Perpetuating and utilizing invisibility of LGB relationships to define relationship norms.  Using heterosexual roles to normalize abuse and shame partner for same sex and bisexual desires.  Using cultural invisibility to isolate partner and reinforce control.  Limiting connection to community.

Source:  Anti-Violence Project, NYC http://www.avp.org