There has been a lot of harmful rhetoric in the manosphere, especially regarding data on domestic violence among lesbians. I’ve seen people use this to justify men abusing women. So, I did some study on this topic and what I found was lesbians do not have the highest rate of domestic violence. In fact, they have the lowest. Lesbians are also the only group of women who are more likely to be murdered by a male stranger than by their own partner. Here is some of the research I found:
- Lesbians are the safest demographic when it comes to domestic violence, according to the 2024 data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). “Lesbians are actually less likely to experience domestic abuse compared to straight women (3.4% of lesbians compared to 6.3%). Gay men are more likely to experience domestic abuse compared to straight men (7.6% of gay men compared to 2.8% of straight men).” Source: New data shows bi+ women and trans people are more likely to experience domestic abuse -
Edit:- Let me clear this up: these numbers do not only include violence lesbian women face from their female partners. They also include violence from male family members and male ex-partners. According to the 2023 and 2025 studies, lesbian women did report higher domestic violence than heterosexual women, but their rates were still lower than those of gay men and bisexual people. I mentioned these studies to show how widely the data can vary by year and sample size.
- For the USA, an age-adjusted study found that: “IPV rates for same-sex male and same-sex female households would be 11.8% and 27.3% lower if they had same age population.”
To put it simply, this states that violence is most common among younger people. The only reason some data show higher rates for queer women is because most queer-identifying women are younger. Source: Elucidating Intimate Partner Violence Rate Disparities Between Same- and Opposite-Sex Couples: A Demographic Approach - PubMed
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Most violence lesbian women face comes from hate crimes or abuse by male family members, not from their own partners. Additionally, the vast majority of lesbians’ murderers are men, Who account for nearly all perpetrators of anti-lesbian hate crimes. Source: Establishing a secure connection ...
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Only 0.05% of intimate partner femicide perpetrators are female, while men account for 99.95%. Even when adjusting for population size, male perpetrators commit intimate partner femicides at a rate roughly 28 times higher than female (lesbian) perpetrators. So yes — lesbian intimate partner femicides are extremely rare compared to male-perpetrated ones, both in raw numbers and per capita. Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10778012042650165
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Reporting & police data
Most police reports show that lesbians are much less likely to report domestic abuse than other groups. For example: A study analyzing 176,488 police-reported IPV incidents from the U.S. National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) found that:
• 1,077 incidents involved same-sex couples Within those same-sex cases:
• ~60% male–male
• ~40% female–female
Additionally, the violence lesbians do report tends to have lower severity rates.
★Where does the idea that lesbians have the highest DV rates come from? It comes from a survey-based CDC study from 2010. Source: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
–According to the study, the lifetime prevalence of IPV (rape, physical violence, and/or stalking) is:
Lesbian women: 43.8%
Bisexual women: 61.1%
Heterosexual women: 35.0%
Right away, we see that bisexual women—not lesbians—have the highest IPV rates. Since bisexual women date both genders, the next step is to look at who the perpetrators are…
According to this study -
–Bisexual women:
61.1% total IPV × 89.5% male-only perpetrators
≈ 54.7% abused by men only
Heterosexual women:
35% total IPV × 98.7% male-only perpetrators
≈ 34.5% abused by men only
Lesbian women: 43.8% total IPV × 67.4% female-only perpetrators
≈ 29.5% abused by women only
So no — IPV from female partners is actually lowest for lesbian women compared to the rates at which bisexual and heterosexual women are abused by male partners.
–If bisexual women mostly report abuse from men or from heterosexual relationships, why do heterosexual women report lower IPV rates? The answer is age. An Age-adjusted population studies show that younger people report the highest rates of intimate partner violence. Since they are more likely to recognize abuse and name it. Queer populations skew younger overall. So bisexual and lesbian women are overrepresented in younger age groups, which naturally leads to higher reporting rates. If heterosexual women were examined within the same age ranges as bisexual or lesbian women, their reported IPV rates would be similar or higher than bisexual women. Source: Elucidating Intimate Partner Violence Rate Disparities Between Same- and Opposite-Sex Couples: A Demographic Approach - PubMed
Another way we can tell that heterosexual women are likely underreporting is by looking at lifetime prevalence data for sexual violence, including rape and sexual violence other than rape. Lifetime prevalence of rape by any perpetrator:
Lesbian women: 13.1%
Bisexual women: 46.1%
Heterosexual women: 17.4%
For perpetrators, the data states: “Most bisexual and heterosexual women (98.3% and 99.1%, respectively) who experienced rape in their lifetime reported having only male perpetrators. The number of lesbian victims was too low to calculate.”
Lifetime prevalence of sexual violence other than rape:
Lesbian women: 46.4%
Bisexual women: 74.9%
Heterosexual women: 43.3%
The report also says: “The majority of lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women (85.2%, 87.5%, and 94.7%, respectively) who experienced sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime reported having only male perpetrators.”
It does not make sense that men would be disproportionately targeting sexual minority women. The more plausible explanation is that heterosexual women are underreporting.
–Many point to the CDC 2010 data claiming gay men report the lowest rates (26%) of intimate partner violence (IPV) , implying women are the main problem. But the reality is more complex. Not all data show gay men with the lowest IPV rates; some studies I mentioned previously indicate higher rates of domestic violence for gay men. But here are a few reasons why some studies, like CDC 2010, might show lower IPV rates for gay men:
1.Lower partnership rates: Gay men are less likely to be in partnered relationships than lesbians. For example, the Williams Institute found about 51% of lesbians are partnered, compared to only 35% of gay men. Since IPV involves partners, fewer partnerships mean fewer reported IPV cases.
2.Underreporting: Gay men tend to underreport IPV. The CDC shows gay men report 26% IPV prevalence but are 1.7 times more likely to need medical care and 16 times more likely to suffer injury than other groups. Source :- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gz_e-6JwcAfG5SsmQz1WdoMY8BshF_7f/view?usp=drivesdk
3.Homicide data: Intimate partner homicide data tells a different story. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that 88% of same-sex IPH victims were male Source:- https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi469
The UNODC reports that in the US, male same-sex partner homicides occur twelve times more than female. Source:- https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/gsh/Booklet_5.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
This suggests gay men may overlook or fear reporting abuse.
★Another CDC report people like to mention is the (CDC NISVS 2016–2017) which found that lifetime prevalence of intimate partner violence to be: Lesbian women: 56.3% Heterosexual women: 46.3% Bisexual women: 69.3% This includes contact sexual violence (CSV), physical violence, and/or stalking. What we learn from this is, where perpetrator gender is identified, it is overwhelmingly male, regardless of the woman’s sexual orientation.
Sex of Perpetrator: (Contact Sexual Violence)
-Over 72% of lesbian victims reported only having male perpetrators; 1 in 5 (20%) had both male and female perpetrators.
-Over 74% of bisexual women victims reported only having male perpetrators; 1 in 6 (16.7%) had both male and female perpetrators.
-Over 89% of heterosexual women victims had only male perpetrators and .5% had only female perpetrators.
-75.3% of gay men reported only having male perpetrators 1 in 6 had both male and female perpetrators.
Source: https://www.nsvrc.org/blog_post/new-nisvs-data-sexual-violence-and-sexual-identitymen y-findings-and-prevention/