Similar to women in heterosexual relationships, women in lesbian relationships have a pattern of committing intimate partner murder out of fear (Mize & Shackelford, 2008). For example, homophobia and discrimination from both family members and their community can increase personal stress on the relationship (Mize & Shackelford, 2008). In these cases, women continue to lack the emotional and social support that the legal system seems to believe they have. What women in violent lesbian relationships lack is availability and safety in shelters for homosexual relationships. Women's shelters are better suited to preventing men from accessing the victim's location and information in heterosexual relationships than in lesbian relationships. This is due to the difficulty in distinguishing between the abused person and the perpetrator in these relationships. A woman who is the perpetrator could easily pretend to be a victim of abuse and become a resident of the same women's shelter as her victim, or she could pretend to be the victim and access her data via telephone (Mize & Shackelford,