Family Violence Support
Rainbow Door LGBTIQA+ Family violence support that understands our community
What is LGBTIQA+ family violence?
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender diverse and transgender, intersex, queer and asexual people of every background and circumstance can experience family and intimate partner violence.
Family violence is behaviour that is used to control someone in a family, family-like or intimate relationship, and makes that person fear for their safety and wellbeing or the safety of another person.
Family violence is often a pattern of behaviour used by people who want to control and dominate others in their relationships. It’s behaviour that physically harms, arouses fear, and can prevents another person from doing what they want or would prefer to do.
This can include:
physical or sexual abuse
emotional or psychological abuse
financial abuse
intimidating/controlling behaviours
causing a family member to fear for their safety and wellbeing or the safety of another person
behaviour that causes a child to hear or witness, or otherwise be exposed to the effects of the above behaviour
Rainbow Door Helpline provides support and referral for LGBTIQA+ community members, and family and friends supporting LGBTIQA+ people.
Do you ever feel unsafe in your relationship? Rainbow Door can help
If you feel unsafe in your relationship and are unsure about where to go for support, Rainbow Door is a helpline for LGBTIQA+ community members and their family and friends to talk about what is going on for them.
Phone: 1800 729 367
Text: 0480 017 246
Email: support@rainbowdoor.org.au
At Rainbow Door we know it can be hard sometimes to reach out for support if you’re experiencing family violence or sexual assault.
We want LGBTIQA+ people experiencing harm to know that you don’t deserve to be abused or sexually assaulted - regardless of your situation, whether you’ve left your relationship(s) or not.
At Rainbow Door, we want to validate the strength it takes for people to share their experiences and we’re here to listen and talk with you.
Our staff at the helpline are specialist peer support workers. We all identify as part of the LGBTIQA+ community and have shared understandings of how stigma, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia and other intersecting discriminations can impact our communities.
Rainbow Door offers a safe space to share your experience with a peer family violence support worker who gets what LGBTIQA+, polyamorous and SM relationships look like. Depending on your needs we can provide phone support, information, risk assessment, safety planning and referral.
What does family and intimate partner violence look like in LGBTIQA+ relationships and communities?
LGBTIQA+ people who use violence in their relationships use the same tactics to gain power and control as people using violence in heterosexual relationships — this can include physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse, financial control, isolation, intimidation, threats and more.
Other forms of family violence in LGBTIQA+ relationships can include homophobia, queerphobia, biphobia and transphobia as one of their weapons to control their partner/s. This makes it even harder for a survivor of family violence to leave a LGBTIQA+ relationship.
Examples of what family and intimate partner violence can look like in LGBTIQA+ relationships and communities:
Threats to out, or actual outing of a partner (this could be at work, family, school, places of worship, social groups, community sport)
Using someone’s HIV status by threatening to ‘out’ them to family, friends or employers
Threats to a partner's capacity or right to children
Isolating someone from contact with the LGBTIQA+ community, LGBTIQA+ organisations, family or friends
Forcing unwanted sexual advances or acts
Withholding medications or hormones or controlling access to health treatments
Policing of identity and gender expression/presenting
Controlling your social life and access to queer community
Exploiting your fear of the police
Misgendering your partner or refusing to use their pronouns
Using homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, intersexphobia, and/or queerphobia as a means to assert power and control over a partner
Using technology to facilitate sexual violence and harassment
Conditional acceptance from family of origin ("We will love you but...")
Are you worried about money in your relationships?
Find out more about LGBTIQA+ experiences of financial abuse
Find out more →
What are the barriers to seeking help?
At Rainbow Door, we know that there can be many barriers to reaching out and seeking support for what’s going in your life.
We know that trying to access culturally safer options in health care, housing, mental health and family services that often exclude people in LGBTIQA+ communities can be hard.
Our goal is to work with you to help find the right support and provide information that will help you navigate what can be a complex support service system.
We work with you to help find service(s) that are most suitable and appropriate for your needs.
For further information on barriers LGBTIQA+ communities experience when seeking support please download the LGBTIQA+ Family Violence Resource page
How can Rainbow Door help?
Rainbow Door staff can offer you information, support and referral, risk assessment and safety planning.
If you are unsure about where to go for assistance, need to talk about what’s going on for you or would like to see a counsellor about your relationship/s then Rainbow Door staff can talk to you and offer support and options for where to go.
The staff at Rainbow Door are specialist peer support workers, we all identify as part of the LGBTIQA+ community. We know that people accessing our services can be experiencing a crisis or difficult time, and often at the hardest time of your life. Our goal is to work with you, to find a service that is right for you, to help connect you to a service, check-in in with you if you have to wait for the right service for you and offer you information that will help you navigate what can be a complex support service system.
Rainbow staff can offer secondary consultations to workers from other organisations who are seeking support to work with their LGBTIQA+ clients.
If you would like more information about Family Violence in LGBTIQA+ communities, this article written by Kate O’Halloran published in the DVRCV magazine Advocate (Spring/Summer 2015) is a good place to start.
A Resource to help practitioners responding to family violence provide LGBTIQA+ inclusive support.
Rainbow Door has partnered with Safe + Equal to develop a tip sheet to help practitioners responding to family violence provide LGBTIQA+ inclusive support, assessment, safety planning and referral.
Safe and Equal is the peak body for specialist family violence services that provide support to victim-survivors in Victoria.