Eddie Mendez used to think of domestic abuse in its most common form: a man battering a woman. But last year, he was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against his male partner and ordered, as part of his probation, to enroll in a program at Chicago’s Center for Domestic Peace.
The center, which has been offering group counseling services to abusive heterosexual men since 1997, only last year began offering similar services to gay and bisexual men who batter their partners.
“I never saw myself in that situation,” said Mendez, 40. “But I look back and realize that I was angry. I was an alcoholic. I was a mess.”
This October, the center has engaged in a number of activities for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, including encouraging people to support the White Ribbon Campaign, which asks participants “to not commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls.” The center tweaks the pledge to include domestic partners.
The center’s 26-week program helps men — relatively few women go through the program — convicted of domestic battery understand why they lash out when they feel disrespected and how their abusive behavior is rooted in the unreasonable need for power and control. The goal is to change the abuser’s behavior.
Michael Feinerman, the center’s co-executive director, said the men in the program, no matter their sexuality, often struggle with how they define “authentic” masculinity.
“A big part of our work is trying to challenge them not to buy into conventionally available definitions about what it means to be a man,” Feinerman said.
In the general population, the incidence of domestic violence is about 25 percent, and that’s about the same for men in gay relationships, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
While common threads exist among abusive men no matter their sexual preference, some aspects make domestic abuse among gay men unique.
“In some parts of the gay community, there’s a lot of bigotry, bias and violence,” Mendez said. “We’ll address each other as queens and homos and use all kinds of unbelievably derogatory words. And you begin to feel — as victim or abuser — that abuse is a part of the culture. And that’s absolutely not true.”
Feinerman said some abusers may rely on a victim’s unwillingness to report the abuse because he fears police won’t take them seriously.
from The Chicago Tribune
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FORT WALTON BEACH, FLORIDA – A man found covered in blood in his car told police that he was OK and that nothing had happened. “This was the way gay couples fight,” he explained.
A Fort Walton Beach Police Department officer saw the couple fighting in their car on Jan. 1. He saw the defendant “wildly punching” in the area of the driver’s seat. He then watched as the suspect moved over to the passenger’s seat.
The officer approached the car and saw the driver covered in blood. The victim was “adament that being hit was an acceptable behavior,” according the defendant’s arrest report.
The blood was from an open wound on the victim’s hand. There was blood all over the victim’s face and clothing, as well as the defendant’s hands.
The two are domestic partners and live together, the report said.
The 22-year-old defendant was charged with domestic battery.
from The Daily News

Leti Martinez & Jennifer Bautista

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – On a ride home from her McDonald’s job two days before she was killed, Leti Martinez told her cousin that her violent relationship with her girlfriend was over, that she wanted a fresh start.
Despite fistfights, scratches, chokeholds, black eyes and one restraining order during their four-year relationship, Martinez and Jennifer Bautista made up as often as they broke up — a typical pattern in domestic cases, whether gay or straight. And, like the worst of abuse cases, this one ended in tragedy after Bautista allegedly ran over Martinez on Dec. 28.
The case has drawn attention to domestic abuse that is often hidden within the gay community, a group that is trying to put its best foot forward as it fights for equal rights. The problem can be particularly difficult to recognize within the lesbian community because of a lingering perception that “women don’t hurt each other.”
But the percentage of domestic violence cases among gay couples is the same as for straight couples — up to 33 percent, studies show — and abusive relationships in both groups suffer the same power and control issues that can lead to violence.
“This was always seen as a guy thing: Guys do this to gals, or they do it to each other, but women don’t do it to each other,” said Wiggsy Sivertsen professor of counseling services at San Jose State University, who has been involved in domestic violence issues for many years, including training San Jose police officers in how to handle abuse among gay couples.
While the gay community makes strides in gaining acceptance in society, “we’re much like other at-risk communities,” Sivertsen said. “If we expose the dirty laundry in our community, they say, ‘See? Look what those people do to each other.’ There’s a kind of reluctance to put ourselves in a situation to be judged that way.”
Just what Martinez, 20, and Bautista, 19, did to each other over the course of their relationship will likely be a major issue in the case against Bautista, who has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and is being held on $500,000 bail.
Deputy District Attorney Dana Overstreet said she couldn’t discuss the details of the investigation, though she noted “any evidence of domestic violence may become extremely important in this case, regardless of who the aggressor is.”
The only details released about the case so far is that neighbors saw the two women arguing outside Martinez’s Alviso home, then one witness saw Martinez jump on top of the Honda’s hood before Bautista started driving down the street. Bautista stopped twice but then fled. At some point during the nearly three-block ordeal, Martinez was run over.
A restraining order filed by Bautista against Martinez a year ago, and interviews with Martinez’s family, indicate that at various times, the women appeared to be mutual combatants.
Some of the conflict appeared to surround Bautista’s other relationships. In the court document granting a temporary restraining order last January, Bautista hand-wrote, with often poor punctuation and spelling, her allegations against Martinez:
“She come to my house and she started arguing about a guy I’m seeing now. She got jealous and broke my phone. Started hitting me and slapping me chocked me left me bruises, marks,” Bautista wrote. “She was threanting me she was going to ‘kill me’ and that, ‘if she can’t have me no one can.’ ”
Bautista has declined media interviews from jail and her family could not be located for comment. Police are hoping the Bautista family will come forward to speak with investigators as well as turn over the purple Honda that is registered to Bautista’s mother.
Martinez’s family, meanwhile, is outraged that instead of being charged with murder, Bautista has been charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, which carries a penalty of up to seven years. They say that Martinez would often come home with her face scratched and black eyes.
“Leave her,” Martinez’s mother, Rhoda Vasquez, would tell her. But her daughter would always say, “No, I love her. Mind your own business.”
It’s a refrain heard time and time again in domestic violence cases of all kinds. And for better or worse, Sivertsen said, “we are really not that different from each other.”
At the LGBTQ Youth Space at the Billy DeFrank Center in San Jose, advice pamphlets about “unhealthy and abusive relationships” are available in the hangout room for their clients between the ages of 13 and 25. Of the 45 young people who are taking advantage of the center’s free counseling service, 20 say they are in an abusive relationship, and six of those are women.
“I wish one of these people were referred here,” said Cassie Blume of the Youth Space program, “to get these kids connected rather than have 19- and 20-year-olds dealing with this themselves.”
from The Mercury News