LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Day
Started in Australia in 2020, LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Day is now marked in at least 20 countries, including Britain, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, India and the Netherlands. It is held annually on 28th May to highlight domestic, family and intimate partner violence and abuse within LGBTQIA+ communities.
According to the LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation, more than 60% of LGBTQIA+ people will experience some form of domestic, family or intimate partner violence and abuse during their lifetime. In many instances, the violence and abuse goes unreported, with 72% of LGBTQIA+ people who experience domestic or family violence not reporting it to anyone.
While the issue of domestic, family and intimate partner violence within queer communities is under-researched, the Private Lives 3 survey conducted in 2019 by La Trobe University’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) found that 60.7% of participants had experienced intimate partner violence, while almost 65% reported experiencing family violence. Types of abuse and violence included physical violence, verbal abuse, sexual assault, financial abuse, harassment or stalking, threats of self-harm or suicide by a partner or family member and LGBTQI+ abuse, such as threats to ‘out’ the person or their HIV status and withholding hormones or medication.
Within the LGBTQIA+ community, non-binary respondents in the Private Lives 3 survey reported the highest levels of verbal, sexual and physical violence amongst all groups, followed by transgender men. Across all five groups of respondents (cisgender women, cisgender men, transgender women, transgender men and non-binary people), verbal abuse was the most common form of attack experienced by respondents. Sexual violence from an intimate partner was especially high amongst non-binary people and transgender men. An alarming 60% of transgender men had experienced verbal abuse from a family member, only slightly more than the 58% of non-binary respondents who had reported the same. Cisgender men reported the lowest levels of abuse and violence amongst all participants in the survey.
For queer people with disability, the risk of becoming a victim of domestic, family or intimate partner violence is even greater. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, people with disability are more likely to be victim-survivors of family, domestic and sexual violence than people without disability and are often faced with additional barriers to getting help. In 2021, Australia’s Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability heard that 40% of women with disability had experienced physical violence compared to 26% of women without disability and that of the LGBTQI+ people who had reported harassment or violence in the previous 12 months, 46% had a disability.