Module 5 · Relationships 101
Module 5: Identity Abuse: What Makes It Different for LGBTQ+ People
In the last module, we looked at the forms abuse can take and why it's always about patterns of power and control. For LGBTQ+ people, some of those patterns take on specific shapes. These are ones that are tied directly to identity, community, and the particular vulnerabilities that come with being LGBTQ+, especially in places where being out carries real risk. This module names them clearly.
What Is Identity Abuse?
Identity abuse means using someone's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression as a weapon of power and control.
It takes advantage of the specific fears and vulnerabilities that come with being LGBTQ+, especially in places where being out carries real risk.
Identity abuse can happen in any relationship: a romantic partner, a family member, a caregiver, or even someone in your community. And it can be hard to name, because it's tangled up with real fears about safety, rejection, and belonging
Outing Threats
One of the most common forms of identity abuse is threatening to out someone. This involves disclosing their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status without their consent.
This can cause serious harm: family rejection, job loss, housing instability, or even physical danger.
Outing threats are powerful because they can trap a person and make them feel like they cannot leave or have to stay with that partner. Especially in a small state like Wyoming, where your community and your safety are deeply connected, the threat of being outed can feel impossible to escape.
Here's what's true: Deciding when, how, and with whom to share information about your identity is a personal choice. Respecting those decisions helps build trust and safety, while taking that choice away from someone can be used as a tactic of power and control.
Controlling Gender Expression
An abuser may try to control aspects of how you present yourself, express your identity, or move through the world. This can include:
Preventing you from dressing, presenting, or expressing yourself as you choose
Refusing to use your name or the terms you ask others to use for you as a form of degradation, humiliation, or control.
Dismissing or undermining your sense of self with statements such as "You're not really trans," or "You're just confused"
Withholding or threatening to interfere with access to support, services, or care as a way to maintain control.
These behaviors are forms of identity abuse. They are not about concern or disagreement. They are tactics used to exert power and control. Healthy relationships respect personal autonomy and do not use identity, self-expression, or access to support as tools of manipulation or control.
Using Community and Chosen Family as Leverage
For many LGBTQ+ people, chosen family and community are everything, especially if biological family isn't supportive or safe.
Abusers know this. They may:
Threaten to tell friends, community members, or organizations things about you.
Control who you can spend time with, especially within LGBTQ+ spaces.
Use your shared social network to isolate you, watch your movements, or damage your reputation.
In a place like Wyoming, where LGBTQ+ community is smaller and harder to find, losing those connections can feel like losing everything. An abuser may use that fear against you.
Other LGBTQ+-Specific Tactics
A few more patterns to be aware of:
Telling you it's not "real" abuse because you share an identity ("We're both queer, this isn't domestic violence!").
Threatening access to important personal documents, records, or services as a way to maintain power and control.
Exploiting internalized shame, or telling you that you deserve the abuse because of who you are.
Threatening to out you to employers, landlords, or child custody courts.
These are all forms of abuse. They are all wrong. And recognizing these tactics as part of a pattern of power and control, rather than isolated incidents, is how we build the awareness that makes communities safer.
Reflect
Had you heard the term "identity abuse" before? What feels new or clarifying about this framing?