Violence Against Queer People: Race, Class, Gender, and the Persistence of Anti-LGBT Discrimination

207 Pages·2015·1.92 MB·English

by  Doug Meyer

VIOLENCE AGAINST QUEER PEOPLE

VIOLENCE A GAINST
QUEER PEOPLE
Race, Class, Gender,
and the Persistence of
Anti- LGBT Discrimination
DOUG MEYER
RUTGERS UNIVERSIT Y PRESS
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Meyer, Doug, 1980
Violence against queer people : race, class, gender, and the persistence of anti- LGBT
discrimination / Doug Meyer.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978– 0- 8135– 7316– 8 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978– 0- 8135– 7315– 1
(pbk. : alk. paper)— ISBN 978– 0- 8135– 7317– 5 (e- book (epub))— ISBN
978– 0- 8135– 7318– 2 (e- book (web pdf))
1. Gays— Violence against— United States. 2. Hate crimes— United States. 3. United
States— Race relations. 4. Social classes— United States. I. Title.
HV6250.4.H66 M492015
362.88086’64— dc23
2015004939
A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British
Library.
Copyright © 2015 by Doug Meyer
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106
Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is
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Visit our website: http:// rutgerspress .rutgers .edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction: Social Inequality and Violence
against LGBT People 1
2 More than Homophobia: The Race, Class, and
Gender Dynamics of Anti- LGBT Violence 17
3 “I’m Making Black People Look Bad”:
The Racial Implications of Anti- Queer Violence 44
4 Gendered Views of Sexual Assault, Physical
Violence, and Verbal Abuse 64
5 Race, Gender, and Perceptions of Violence
as Homophobic 84
6 “Not That Big of a Deal”: Social Class
Differences in Viewing Violence as Severe 103
7 The Home and the Street: Violence from
Strangers and Family Members 121
8 Conclusion: Anti- Queer Violence and
Multiple Systems of Oppression 143
Appendix: Methods 159
Notes 167
References 175
Index 187

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank Victoria Pitts- Taylor and Barbara
Katz Rothman, both of whom helped improve this project tremendously
through their invaluable support and guidance. Their dedication to the proj-
ect helped me grow as a researcher, scholar, and feminist. For giving me space
when I wanted it, but also feedback when I needed it, I thank them. This work
would also not have been possible without the participation of the people I
interviewed. They deserve my deepest thanks for sharing their experiences. I
remain indebted to them, as I learned a lot through their openness and kind-
ness. I would also like to thank the many organizations that allowed me to
place recruitment flyers in their lobby or waiting room; for making that pro-
cess run smoothly, I am grateful.
Colleagues at multiple institutions helped improve this project. Mimi
Schippers has provided crucial guidance throughout my academic career and
deserves special thanks. Joshua Freilich has also been incredibly helpful and
supportive, and I thank him for his feedback on this project at various stages.
At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), Hester
Eisenstein helped me tremendously through my early years of graduate study.
For listening to my ideas and responding with a supportive but critical ear, I
also thank Maria Biskup, Kara Van Cleaf, Ali Salerno, Soniya Munshi, Nom-
vuyo Nolutshungu, Ron Nerio, Julie Lavelle, Ken Nielsen, Hilary Burdge, and
Mitra Rastegar. I am grateful to Jes Peters for helping with some of the tran-
scriptions and Andrew Stewart for providing advice on my work. At the Col-
lege of Wooster, Christa Craven provided enormously helpful feedback and
support; I thank her tremendously. I also thank Anne Nurse, Setsuko Matsu-
zawa, Olivia Navarro- Farr, Michael Forbes, Craig Willse, David McConnell,
Thomas Tierney, Heather Fitz Gibbon, Nick Kardulias, and Pam Frese. At the
University of Virginia, I benefited from the feedback and support of many col-
leagues: Charlotte Patterson, Andre Cavalcante, Denise Walsh, Corinne Field,
Lisa Speidel, Kath Weston, Amanda Davis, Miranda Waggoner, and Sabrina
Pendergrass.
The funding agencies that supported this project provided crucial support.
Particular thanks go to the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law
and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law, the Ford Foundation Award
from the CUNY Graduate Center, and the Professional Development Funds

vii
viii Acknowledgments
from Queens College and the College of Wooster. Their generous sup-
port helped me to complete this project. My research assistants, Lily Vela
and David Hirsch, as well as Gina Christo and Jacob Danko, also deserve
thanks. At academic conferences, I benefited from the feedback of several
people, including Eric Anthony Grollman, Salvador Vidal Ortiz, Patrick
Grzanka, Emily Mann, and Molly Merryman. Although I have written
Violence against Queer People in a more accessible way than my work in
various academic journals, some of the data from this text have appeared
elsewhere. Some of chapters 3 and 4 has appeared in Gender & Society as
“An Intersectional Analysis of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
(LGBT) People’s Evaluations of Anti- Queer Violence” (2012, 26(6): 849–
873). Parts of chapter 6 have appeared in Sociology as “Evaluating the Sever-
ity of Hate- Motivated Violence: Intersectional Differences among LGBT
Hate Crime Victims” (2010, 44(5): 980–9 95), and sections of chapter 5
have appeared in Race, Gender & Class as “Interpreting and Experiencing
Anti- Queer Violence: Race, Class, and Gender Differences among LGBT
Hate Crime Victims” (2008, 15(3– 4): 262–2 82). A few paragraphs from
this text were published in Critical Criminology as “Resisting Hate Crime
Discourse: Queer and Intersectional Challenges to Neoliberal Hate Crime
Laws” (2014, 61(4): 453– 470). I thank the editors and reviewers of these
journals for their critical, but extraordinarily useful, feedback.
Peter Mickulas, my editor at Rutgers University Press, helped improve
this project tremendously. For his helpful feedback and unwavering sup-
port, I am grateful. Special thanks to John Raymond for his extremely
useful help with copyediting, and Carrie Hudak for her help with pro-
duction. Finally, I would like to thank my family members for all of their
support— A. J. Meyer, Mike Meyer, Howard Meyer, and Sharron Meyer;
I could not have completed this project without all of your love. Most
important, I would like to thank my husband, Alberto McKelligan, whose
selflessness and kindness continues to move me. He has made this project
infinitely better through not only his helpful comments and suggestions
but also his love and support. His advice has always been tremendously
useful, as he has read much of my work and listened to me talk about this
project many times. For helping me in infinite ways, I thank him dearly.
VIOLENCE AGAINST QUEER PEOPLE