In recent years, Valentine’s Day has been reclaimed and reshaped to celebrate love in all its forms – beyond romance and sex. Galentine’s Day, self-love rituals, and the celebration of deep platonic connections have gained mainstream recognition, expanding our collective understanding of what love can be. Slowly, we’ve made space for the friendships, chosen families, and personal growth that shape our lives just as profoundly as romantic relationships do. But while our definition of love has evolved, our understanding of its darker sides has not. The ways we recognize and talk about abuse, control, and harm remain largely trapped in outdated narratives – ones that fail to account for the complexities of love beyond traditional partnerships.
For centuries, domestic violence was dismissed as a private family matter. While legal progress has been made, our understanding remains deeply flawed. We continue to define domestic violence too narrowly, failing to recognize violence outside of heterosexual, predominantly white, romantic or sexual partnerships. Domestic violence is not just about husbands abusing wives – it happens in queer communities, between parents and children, and among siblings. Yet our legal and support systems only recognize certain victims, leaving countless others invisible.
Historically, domestic violence was reinforced by both law and social norms. In the 19th century, spousal abuse was legally acknowledged but widely dismissed. Many laws explicitly permitted husbands to discipline their wives, and violence within marriage was socially tolerated. The first legal challenges in the late 1800s began to question a husband’s right to physically punish his wife, marking the first cracks in the foundation of normalized domestic violence.
Meaningful change was slow. It wasn’t until the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s that domestic violence gained national attention, leading to organizations like the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). By the 1990s, the passage of the Violence Against Women Act(VAWA) formally recognized domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes and provided funding for anti-violence initiatives.
Still, legal reform alone was not enough. In the early 2000s, advocates reframed domestic violence as a public health crisis, recognizing its roots in power imbalances, economic instability, and social norms. WHO’s 2002 World Report on Violence and Health moved the field toward broader terms like interpersonal violence to better capture these dynamics. Despite this progress, our frameworks still fail many victims.
One of the most glaring oversights is the erasure of domestic violence in queer relationships. Even as legal protections for LGBTQ+ relationships expand, we hesitate to acknowledge abuse within them. Some fear that discussing domestic violence in queer relationships will reinforce harmful stereotypes. But refusing to address the issue does not protect queer survivors, it isolates them.
When queer domestic violence does enter public discourse, it is often misrepresented. Take the case of the Framingham Eight in the 1990s. These women – survivors of prolonged physical, emotional, and psychological abuse – were convicted of killing or conspiring to kill their abusers. Their cases highlighted the legal system’s failure to recognize self-defense in domestic violence situations. In 1997, most were granted clemency, but Debra Reid, the only lesbian among them, was denied. Advocates argued that gender biases and a lack of understanding of intimate partner violence in same-sex relationships contributed to her continued incarceration.
This case reflects a broader truth: queer survivors face additional barriers to safety and justice. Many are gaslit into believing their abuse didn’t happen or pressured to stay silent to protect their community’s image. And when they do seek help, they struggle to find LGBTQ+-affirming services. Some argue that discussing domestic violence in queer relationships does more harm than good. But silence does not shield the LGBTQ+ community from harm, it shields abusers.
Just as we overlook queer survivors, we also fail to recognize domestic violence when it occurs between parents and children. When a parent kills or abuses a child, why don’t we call it domestic violence? When a child harms a parent, why do we categorize it separately?
The way we label violence matters. It shapes public understanding, policy, and the resources available to survivors. Yet time and again, media coverage erases certain forms of domestic violence. Consider the case of 14-year-old Hira Anwar, murdered by her father after posting a TikTok video he deemed “immodest.” Not one major news outlet referred to it as domestic violence.
Or take Adam Lanza, who killed his mother before committing the Sandy Hook massacre, or the Menéndez brothers, who murdered their parents after years of abuse. In Australia, a 2023 study found that 30% of domestic violence-related homicides involved women over 55 being killed by family members, often their own children.
Some argue that parent-child violence is fundamentally different from intimate partner violence. While the power dynamics may differ, the patterns of abuse – coercion, control, fear, and cycles of harm – remain strikingly similar. Even when new terms like adolescent-to-parent violence (APV) emerge to acknowledge these forms of abuse, they often fail to bring real change. Recognition without resources leaves victims and families struggling alone.
Expanding the definition of domestic violence is not about diluting its meaning, it’s about making it more accurate. Right now, our legal, social, and support systems only recognize certain victims as credible, and those victims are overwhelmingly white, heterosexual women.
This does not mean that heterosexual intimate partner violence isn’t a crisis, it is. But it is not the only crisis. When we fail to name violence in queer relationships, in parent-child dynamics, or in sibling abuse, we erase entire groups of survivors. Without recognition, they are left without language to describe their experiences and without access to the support they need.
If we continue to define domestic violence too narrowly, we will keep failing those who don’t fit the traditional mold of victimhood. Our laws, media, and support systems must catch up to reality. If Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love in all its forms, then it should also be a moment to acknowledge the ways love is weaponized. We cannot claim to honor love while ignoring those harmed in its name. Every survivor, no matter their identity or relationship to their abuser, deserves to be seen.
About the Author: Alex Madsen is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project on Domestic Violence and Economic Security. The opinions expressed in this piece are solely her own.
