Exploring sexual and gender minorities’ experiences of sexual violence and access to sexual violence support services

Despite research indicating that sexual and gender minorities experience similar rates of sexual violence to those of their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts, these victims/survivors have largely been omitted from sociological accounts of sexual violence. The impacts of this omission are not limited to the academic sphere, but rather, are identifiable within the everyday lives of sexual and gender minority victims/survivors. Notably, the social and cultural prioritisation of cisgender, heterosexual women – as the typical victims/survivors of sexual violence – has resulted in sexual and gender minorities experiencing significant barriers to support. Existing research indicates that sexual and gender minorities face barriers to mainstream sexual violence support services in the UK. This thesis addresses these barriers by presenting findings from its qualitative study, which centres the narratives of the 11 victims/survivors and five service providers who participated within this research. As such, this thesis can be situated amongst a growing body of literature aimed at accounting for LGBTQ+ individuals’ experiences of sexual violence – and their access to sexual violence support services – more generally. This study, in particular, addresses a gap in the sociological literature on sexual violence, by incorporating an analysis of the intersections between homophobia/biphobia, transphobia, sexism, and misogyny. By centring sexual minorities who belong to marginalised gender categories, and, through its application of a queer poststructuralist feminist lens, this thesis contributes new insights to sociological conceptualisations of sexual violence. Departing from dominant feminist investigations of sexual violence, this thesis attends to the harms caused by the ‘typical script’ of sexual violence, and in doing so, calls for an analytical approach to sexual violence that extends beyond a singularly (binary) gendered analysis.