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Coping with Abuse Inside the Family and Out: LGBT and/or Male Victims of Elder Abuse

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Elder Abuse

Abstract

An estimated 1.5 million U.S. adults aged 65+ have a same-sex or both/all-sex sexual orientation. Another 1 % has a gender identity different than the sex they were assigned at birth. What can make elder abuse different for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT) elders is not their sexuality or gender identity, but how others—ranging from their closest family members to strangers thousands of miles away in buildings devoted to law making, law enforcement, and policy interpretation—have created the environments in which sexual and gender minorities have had to survive. This chapter explores what makes LGBT elder abuse victims different from non-LGBT victims; reviews studies of LGBT elder abuse; and discusses LGBT-specific elder abuse tactics and reasons victims may not access or accept help. It also explores the additional barriers faced by male LGBT elder abuse victims, including how male victims have been affected by the history of programs addressing domestic violence and sexual assault; what research says about them; how sexual assault has been defined so as to exclude male victims and female perpetrators; how male socialization negatively affects male victims’ ability to access help; and how service systems biases play out for male and/or transgender survivors. The chapter closes with research challenges, future directions, recent federal efforts to make services more available to male and/or LGBT victims, and advice and resources for working with LGBT elder abuse victims.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Margaret Kucera is a Wisconsin resident who kindly granted permission to use her name and history for this chapter. Her story was published in “Full Court Press,” (2015), Our Lives Magazine.

  2. 2.

    The Violence Against Women Act is U.S. legislation, but similar women-only systems were developed in Canada and the U.K.

  3. 3.

    F to M means female-to-male transgender person, also known as FTM.

  4. 4.

    “Cis” or “cisgender” is a term used to describe someone whose birth gender and current gender identity are in alignment. A cisgender individual is someone who is not transgender.

  5. 5.

    Male-to-female transgender person.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FORGE, Inc, P.O. Box 1272, Milwaukee, WI, 53201, USA

    Loree Cook-Daniels

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  1. Loree Cook-Daniels
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Correspondence to Loree Cook-Daniels .

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  1. Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA

    XinQi Dong

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Cook-Daniels, L. (2017). Coping with Abuse Inside the Family and Out: LGBT and/or Male Victims of Elder Abuse. In: Dong, X. (eds) Elder Abuse. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47504-2_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47504-2_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47504-2

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