The implication is that rape only occurs in heterosexual marriages or long-term partnerships-which is, of course, not the case. All states passed laws against marital rape by 1993 (with some exceptions per state), but while some of the legal language employs the gender-neutral "spouse" to explain assaults within a marriage, other states, like Alabama and California, default to "wife" for victim and "husband" for attacker. Woman-on-woman assault doesn't just happen on college campuses or at the hands of strangers-just like their straight counterparts, queer women often experience sexual assault within relationships. Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating it once it happens, and finally by not analyzing the data-and therefore creating awareness-after it does. "So, in some ways, we're playing catch up." All of this amounts to a culture in which most research on partner violence focuses on heterosexual relationships. "When someone is confronted with a situation that doesn't quite fit that major narrative, they may question its validity," she says. These gender norms can directly contribute to distrust of a victim's claims, says Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, co-author of a recent study of LGBTQ intimate partner violence in Colorado. "Many people have a difficult time believing that a woman could be capable of inflicting violence on another person." Since this scenario is rarely portrayed in the media or in educational programming, "it can be especially challenging to identify their experience as violence," she says. Stephanie Trilling, manager of community awareness and prevention services at the Boston Area Rape Crisis (BARCC), observes that for her queer female clients who have been assaulted by women, the first hurdle is simply understanding the assault as rape.
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