Article 1 Review- Bridget T.

Onken, S. “Conceptualizing Violence Against Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Intersexual, and      

            Transgendered People”. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services (1998): 5-20.

            In Stephen J. Onken’s Conceptualizing Violence Against Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered People,” he defines antigay violence and integrates many illustrations of such violence, while also exploring its conceptual foundations. Furthermore, connections between power and oppression are made, with a particular focus on the relationship of violence to heterosexist and gender oppression. Onken’s main point of this exploration is to fight this violence by bringing to light the sexism, heterosexism, and genderism that occur in our society, and confronting them. He states, “Authentic freedom from sex, gender, and sexual orientation inequality is also freedom from the tenets of authority, coercion, violence, and power that define many affectional-sexual relationships” (20).

            In the beginning of his article, Onken sets the stage for support of his argument by defining three different types of violence. The first involves individual violence, or “harmful acts against people or property” (6). The second involves institutional violence, or “harmful actions by social institutions and their various organizational units that obstruct the spontaneous unfolding of human potential” (6-7). Lastly, the third involves structural-cultural violence, or “the normative and ideological roots of violence that undergird and give rise to the institutional and individual levels” (7).

            Next, Onken goes on to describe three levels of violence with the first being omission, or “failing to help someone in need”. The second, repression, or “depriving people of their rights”. The third, alienation, or “depriving people of self-esteem and identity” (8). He argues that the levels of violence and the different types of violence are best understood by examining how they are interconnected. A good example Onken gives to demonstrate one of these concepts is when the federal government makes “deliberate attempts to withhold findings and recommendations that were of use in helping to keep gay and lesbian youths alive” (9). When this happens, it is considered the institutional type of violence through the omission level of violence.

            Additionally, Onken defines the term ‘oppression’ as the “act of molding, immobilizing, or reducing opportunities which thereby restrains, restricts or prevents social, psychological, and/or economic movement of and individual or a group” (9). Essentially, oppression is the power upheld by majority groups by the use of violence or threat of violence upon minority groups. He argues that majority groups do this through the practices violence in the forms of omission, repression, and alienation.

            The last focus that I want to pull from Onken’s article is the exploration of privilege, with emphasis on privilege associated with heterosexuality. Onken defines heterosexism as “both the belief that heterosexuality is or should be the only acceptable sexual orientation and the fear and hatred of those who love and sexually desire those of the same sex” (10). Moreover, homophobia, which is prejudice “often leading to acts of discrimination, sometimes abusive and violent” (10), is a term heavily related to heterosexism. Onken argues that heterosexual privilege fuels homophobia, and therefore violence, against sexual minorities.

            Onken’s article relates to my blog topic of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people because it gives a detailed explanation of why and how said violence is fueled: by the upholding of privilege and power of heterosexual majorities. His article is also comparable to Peggy McIntosh’s article called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. McIntosh writes, “To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these taboo subjects” (4). Onken and McIntosh’s main points are in accordance: to stop the violence and oppression against minority groups, we must first bring to light the often invisible privilege given to majority groups. 

-Bridget Thomas