Negotiating Identity, Belonging, And Survival: A Phenomenological Study Of Domestic Abuse Among LGBTQ+ Survivors In Mindanao, Philippines

Abstract

Domestic abuse remains a pervasive global concern, yet the lived experiences of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) survivors continue to be underrepresented within domestic violence scholarship, particularly in the Philippine context. Existing research has largely emphasized the prevalence and correlates of abuse, leaving limited understanding of how LGBTQ+ survivors experience, negotiate, and ultimately transcend intimate partner violence within heteronormative social environments. This study employed a descriptive phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of eleven LGBTQ+ survivors of domestic abuse in Mindanao, Philippines. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling and interviewed using semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed following Colaizzi's phenomenological method to identify the essential structure of the lived experience. Phenomenological analysis disclosed that domestic abuse was experienced not merely as repeated acts of interpersonal violence but as a progressive erosion of identity, autonomy, and belonging within relationships initially perceived as spaces of emotional affirmation. Four interconnected constituents characterized this lived experience: (1) loving as a search for legitimacy within a heteronormative society, (2) violence as a progressive system of identity-based control, (3) enduring violence through negotiated survival, and (4) reclaiming agency through self-recognition and affirming social relationships. Collectively, these constituents suggest an integrated phenomenological description in which survivors continually negotiate identity, belonging, coercion, and agency throughout their experiences of abuse and recovery. The findings suggest that Gendered Pathways Theory may benefit from greater consideration of identity-based coercive control among LGBTQ+ populations. The study contributes a deeper phenomenological understanding of LGBTQ+ domestic abuse by shifting scholarly attention from isolated risk factors toward the experiential processes through which identity is contested, negotiated, and reconstructed. These findings underscore the importance of trauma-informed, identity-affirming interventions and culturally responsive policies that recognize recovery as both a process of ensuring safety and restoring dignity, belonging, and selfhood among LGBTQ+ survivors.