In June, The Women’s Center recognizes and celebrates Pride Month, which honors the LGBTQ+ movement, celebrates the freedom to be one’s self, and brings awareness to the inequalities experienced by the LGBTQ+ community.
We serve clients from diverse backgrounds and work to create a welcoming, safe, and supportive environment for all survivors. This includes the LGBTQ+ community, who have historically faced stigmatization and discrimination.
Intimate partner violence affects people of ages, genders, races, and sexual orientations. In the LGBTQ+ community, there are unique ways of exerting power and control in addition to physical and sexual violence and verbal abuse. Abusers may threaten “outing” their victim by revealing their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Transgender people can be called offensive pronouns such as “it” or told that they are not a “real” man or woman. Yet, LGBTQ+ survivors are less likely to seek help and report the abuse because of fear of discrimination and prior experiences, such as bullying and hate crime.
All victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence, child abuse or trafficking will always be welcomed and supported at The Women’s Center. We recognize that there are a lot of deeply entrenched biases and lack of understanding surrounding the LGBTQ+ community, and we are committed to ensuring our staff and volunteers receive training and education to unlearn biases.
Our goal is to ensure that all who need our services feel seen, heard and supported. If you or someone you know would like to talk, call our free, confidential 24-Hour Hotline at 262.542.3828.
Sources:
https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/lgbt-abuse/
https://ncadv.org/blog/posts/domestic-violence-and-the-lgbtq-community