This Pride month, Vale Domestic Abuse Services has launched new support materials for the LGBTQ+ community, created in collaboration with a former service user with lived experience of a same-sex abusive relationship.
We know that domestic abuse and sexual violence can happen in any relationship. Yet for many in the LGBTQ+ community, these experiences are often misunderstood, minimised or not recognised at all.
To explain this further, our volunteer, Lucianna Brunskill, has written the article that follows…
“Domestic abuse can happen to anyone. Yet for many LGBTQ+ survivors, the reality of abuse remains hidden behind stereotypes, stigma, and silence.
Public conversations about domestic abuse often centre heterosexual relationships. While raising awareness of violence against women remains vital, this narrow understanding can leave LGBTQ+ survivors feeling invisible. When people don’t see their experiences reflected in awareness campaigns, support services, or media coverage, they may struggle to recognise what is happening to them as abuse.
The truth is simple: abuse is about power and control, not gender, sexuality, or identity.
An abusive partner may use threats, intimidation, emotional manipulation, coercion, financial control, or physical violence to maintain that power. For LGBTQ+ survivors, abuse can also take unique forms. A partner may threaten to “out” someone to family, friends, employers, or their community. They may use a person’s gender identity against them, deliberately misgender them, or undermine their transition. These tactics can create profound fear and isolation.
Many LGBTQ+ survivors face an additional burden: the fear that they won’t be believed.
Questions such as “How can it be abuse if you’re both women?” or “Who is the victim if none of you are men?” reveal the damaging myths that still exist. These misconceptions prevent people from seeking help and allow abuse to continue unchecked.
Assumptions that abuse cannot occur in relationships involving transgender or non-binary people reveal the damaging myths that still exist. Some survivors are told that abuse is less serious because of their gender identity, while others fear they will not be understood or believed at all.
But no one should have to prove that their abuse is real.
If you are LGBTQ+ and experiencing abuse, your experiences are valid. You deserve to be listened to, believed, and supported. Abuse is never your fault, and you do not have to face it alone.
As a society, we must challenge the idea that domestic abuse only affects certain types of relationships. We must create support, conversations, and communities where every survivor feels seen and safe enough to ask for help.
This Pride Month and every month to follow, let’s celebrate authenticity, visibility, and freedom – but let’s also acknowledge those whose relationships are marked by fear rather than safety.
If something doesn’t feel right in your relationship, trust that feeling. Reaching out for support can be difficult, but it can also be the first step towards safety, recovery, and reclaiming your future.
Everyone deserves a relationship built on respect. Everyone deserves to feel safe. Everyone deserves support.”
For more information or support, please contact Vale Domestic Abuse Services on 01446 744755, on contact info@valedas.org. You can call in to our offices at 198 Holton Road, Barry, Monday – Friday 9am-4:30pm.