Sexual Consent, Sexual Coercion, and Victimization within the LGBTQA+ Community

Research on sexual consent and violence has traditionally focused on heterosexual, cisgender interactions between men and women. In other words, research in this area has had a heteronormative approach in that it has considered heterosexual cisgender experiences as standard, normal, and dominant to the exclusion of Qqueer or gender non-conforming experiences (Marchia & Sommer, 2019; Warner, 1993). This chapter seeks to situate sexually minoritized1 people’s experiences with sexual consent and victimization within Q queer and feminist theoretical perspectives by briefly reviewing the relevant literature, identifying the gaps, and highlighting current research that investigates LGBTQA+2 experiences with sexual victimization. This chapter strives to remove the gender binary that is typically studied in sexual violence; male perpetrator and female victim (for a review of the gender binary in sexual violence see Turchik, Hebenstreit, & Judson et al., 2016); and focus on existing power structures and forces, regardless of gender or sexual identity. By shifting the focus to power, which is dynamic within dual identities (gender and sexual identities), the findings elucidate how sexual violence in LGBTQA+ populations presents itself, and how and where power dynamics influence communication around sex.