Abstract

Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz’s book Transgressed: Intimate Partner Violence in Transgender Lives offers a much-needed addition to research on intimate partner violence (IPV) by exploring trans people’s unique experiences of IPV. The book comes at a significant time when the United States is once again grappling with IPV legislation. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), first passed in 1994, creates and supports programs and resources that address IPV, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. With its reauthorization in 2013, the VAWA was extended to cover men and same-sex couples, and it now prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual identity, or gender identity (in addition to other vital changes). Thus, trans people in the United States now have the right to receive all of the same services as cisgender women and to have their gender identities respected when seeking support for IPV. However, VAWA was not reauthorized by President Trump in 2018 and has lost significant funding for shelters and prevention efforts. Although the funding has diminished, Acting Director of the Office on Violence Against Women Laura Rogers stated that the legal protections in VAWA have not expired (Department of Justice 2020). Unfortunately, as Guadalupe-Diaz demonstrates in Transgressed, these rights have not necessarily translated into actual help. Guadalupe-Diaz uses the stories of eighteen trans survivors of IPV to highlight the distinctive dimensions of IPV for trans people and to point activists and practitioners toward more trans-inclusive policies and practices. The book’s focus on trans survivors makes it a timely addition to the growing field of trans studies within sociology, criminology, and victimology and demonstrates that these fields can no longer rely on cisand heteronormative or binary work. Social science must be intersectional and consider how violence can affect all people, not just cisgender women. Taking a queer and feminist perspective, GuadalupeDiaz seeks meaning from trans people as subjects, not objects of study. He allows the voices of trans people to be heard and to lead his analysis. Overall, this book is accessible and provides a great introduction to the unique features of IPV among trans people. While research on IPV experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people began to expand in the mid-1990s, it has been a slow process and much of this work focused primarily on cisgender lesbian women and cisgender gay men. In 1996, Claire Renzetti and Charles Miley edited a book, Violence in Gay and Lesbian Domestic Partnerships, that Renzetti states marks ‘‘nothing less than a milestone . . . . [and] signifies the growing official recognition of domestic violence within lesbian and gay relationships as a social problem worthy of serious attention and intervention’’ (p. xiii). Similarly, Guadalupe-Diaz’s book, almost a quarter-century later, marks another milestone for IPV research. Although some trans experiences with IPV are similar to those of cis heterosexual women, cis lesbian women, and cis gay men, there are further obstacles that trans people must navigate. In Chapter Three, Guadalupe-Diaz argues these additional obstacles are directly related to genderism and transphobia, just as homophobia and heteronormativity are at the center of the Transgressed: Intimate Partner Violence in Transgender Lives, by Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz. New York: New York University Press, 2019. 213 pp. $28.00 paper. ISBN: 9781479827855. Review Essays 197