Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People

Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People helps you look past the stereotypical picture of violence against sexual minorities--the public physical assaults on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth by hypermasculine male thugs--and directs you toward the many daily acts of quiet violence that go on, unhindered, in the workaday settings of our legal, social, educational, and law-enforcement institutions. You’ll learn about the frightening prevelance of complacency, homophobic ignorance, and apathy that pervades our police departments, courts, high schools, and churches. Also, armed with this critical insight and statistical research, you’ll be better equipped to wage a non-violent war of fairness and mutual respect against the daily, senseless violence of policy and practice that threatens to render gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people unwelcome and battered citizens in their own communities.

You’ll find that Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People is ideal for aiding social workers, counselors, teachers, and criminal justice officials in removing the unseen acts of violence from the policies and practices of the public sector. These and other specific areas will give you the information and the fortitude necessary to evoke positive change in your community:

• legal issues relating to same-sex marriage

• the connection between social injustice and violence

• violence against sexual minority youth

• sexual identity and ethnic minorities

• practice and policy recommendations

  As this book shows, violence against sexual minorities can be subtly woven into the very fabric of some of our most long-standing, respected social institutions. For too long, the sexual minorities of color, for example, and the lesbian who suffers physical assault at the hands of a partner, have had little or no help from social workers, law enforcement, or education for fear of receiving either complete negligence or increased antagonism. But now, in Violence and Social Injustice Against Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People, you’ll find the facts and tools necessary for turning the ugliness of communal violence into social justice for people of all sexual orientations.