Measuring the Tangible Fear of Heterosexist Violence

Abstract

Fear of crime (FoC) has dominated the political landscape over the last 20 years, with many crime policy developments during this period linked not to actual experiences of violence but to the fear of victimization. Fear of crime studies, in most cases, are conducted with populations that have only a passing, mediated knowledge of crime victimization. The research discussed in this article, in contrast, considers the impact of FoC with a highly victimized community, and establishes psychometric testing to validate an instrument to measure the impact of that fear ( Fear of Heterosexism Scale [ FoHS]). If FoC is related to experiences of crime as the existing research suggests, then victims of heterosexist prejudice, discrimination, and/or violence would be more likely to fear such incidents in the future. It was also predicted that participants who concealed their sexual and/or gender identity and had lower levels of social connectedness would experience higher levels of fear. The findings highlight the importance of contextual factors in FoH, and identify the critical roles that disclosure and social connectedness play in ameliorating the damaging effects of heterosexist victimization.