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Debunking Lesbian Domestic Violence Data (i.redd.it)

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[–]naf165 99 points100 points  (15 children)

Worth noting that the stats cited in your screenshot and the first half of your post are cherry picked by the article and misrepresentative.

ONS (the source the article uses but does not cite or link to) publishes their data for each year and you can look at the stats yourself: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/domesticabuseprevalenceandvictimcharacteristicsappendixtables

The tabloid article you cite that references their data exclusively references the 2024 dataset which is the only year where gay women have a lower rate than hetero women. If you look at the data across all the other years, this number is very clearly an outlier, with lesbian rates usually falling between 8-15% and almost always nearly equal with gay men.

In 2019, the lesbian rate was 10.2% compared to 7.3% of hetero women, 3.7% of hetero men, and 5.1% of gay men. (and 12/17 for bi women/men)

In 2025, the lesbian rate was 13.0% compared to 8.4% of hetero women, 5.9% of hetero men, and 15.5% of gay men.

If you average the rates across multiple years, we see a clear pattern. Hetero men/women are about 40% less than gay men/women which are usually about 60% less than bisexual men/women.

This reinforces the data from the CDC study, and also from the other report you cite later, which asserts that young people have the highest rates. But also we see a very consistent pattern, bisexual people, of all genders, have shockingly higher rates than both gay and hetero populations.

If we take the ONS data across all years, the rates from highest to lowest are: Bi Women -> Bi Men -> Gay Women -> Gay Men -> Hetero Women -> Hetero Men

I don't know how the ONS gathers their data, what the impact of under/over reporting is, or any other factors that might impact this data, but we should be clear about what the data actually says.

[–]ChopsticksImmortal 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Appreciate the comment.

I wonder if anyone has done studies on the difference in severity? Based on this new information, my expectation is that female domestic violence may be more common but less severe (slaps, non bone breaking punches, scratches), while male domestic violence may be less common but more severe, based on strength and mass.

[–]TearMuted8403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not lower among gay men. At least from the recent years. From what I found from the link there were a total 7 years.

2023: Lesbian – 7.3%, Gay men – 7.9% 2024: Lesbian – 3.4%, Gay men – 7.6% 2025: Lesbian – 13.0%, Gay men – 15.5%

They didn’t gave the number by sexual orientations in 2022. Also from what commenter said it was higher in 2019. I personally couldn’t find those data from the link. But it might be higher among lesbians in earlier dataset. 

[–]naf165 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have any data with me, so take this with a grain of salt, but as I recall from studies I've read prior, men tend to have higher physical intensity on average for reported abuses.

Also, I don't know if there's any research into if that would be because: higher T levels cause men to be more violent, men tend to do more damage with the same levels of exertion due to the strength difference, men are socialized to expect a higher level of physical roughhousing growing up, or some other reason.