by George Appleby and Jeane Anastas

About the authors: George Appleby and Jeane Anastas began working together to address gay and lesbian issues in the early 1990s. They have given workshops together at professional conferences, and are coauthors of the book Not Just a Passing Phase, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

Violence against gay and lesbian people can be easily dismissed as a problem by many because it expresses widely held attitudes; similarly because gay and lesbian relationships are either invisible (these are just “roommates” or “friends” who got into a fight) or are seen as dysfunctional anyway, the problem of domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships has long gone unrecognized. When it comes to domestic violence, however, the gay and lesbian communities themselves have also been slow to acknowledge...