Pride in Respect
Pride in Respect is an LGBTIQA+SB community partnership between Living Proud, GRAI, Transfolk WA and WAAC, and generously funded by the Department of Communities.
About the campaign
Building on initiatives such as the LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Day, and the ’16 Days in WA’ campaign by the Western Australian State Government, Pride in Respect is a multi-media awareness campaign developed by community, for community, and built from the ground up on lived experience.
The campaign acknowledges the lived and living experiences of LGBTIQA+SB people impacted by family and domestic violence; we honour their strength and the unique challenges they face in seeking safety, support, and understanding.
We recognise their courage, resilience, and the strength it takes to share their stories or simply keep going, and we commit to creating spaces where their voices are heard, respected, and supported.
Why This Campaign Matters
LGBTIQA+ people experience family, domestic and intimate partner violence, but these experiences are still too often invisible. Australian research has found that when LGBTIQA+ people were asked direct questions, 41.73% reported intimate partner violence and 30.93% reported family of origin violence. When asked about a wider list of specific abusive behaviours, these figures rose to 60.71% for intimate partner violence and 43.18% for family of origin violence – showing that many people may experience abuse without naming it that way.
This campaign matters because recognition is part of prevention.
When people can see their experiences reflected, they are more likely to understand what is happening, talk about it, support others, and seek help.
It also matters because services, families and communities need better tools to recognise forms of violence that are specific to LGBTIQA+ lives, including identity-based abuse, family rejection, threats to ‘out’ someone, misgendering, and the impacts of stigma, racism, transphobia, biphobia and homophobia. The evidence is clear enough to act. Researchers and practitioners continue to call for more data, but they also argue that existing knowledge already supports urgent expansion of LGBTIQ-inclusive family violence services, prevention work and community education.
The Bigger Picture.
To prevent violence, we need to change the beliefs, systems and structures that allow power and control to continue.
Violence does not happen in a vacuum. It is shaped by wider social conditions that make some people more likely to use power over others, and make some people less likely to be believed, protected or supported. These conditions are often called structural drivers of violence and include gender inequality, rigid gender roles, sexism, racism, ableism, poverty, colonial violence, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, cisnormativity and heteronormativity.
In family, domestic and intimate partner violence, these drivers can show up in everyday beliefs about who should have power, whose safety matters, and what kinds of relationships are seen as “real” or legitimate. Rigid gender norms can excuse controlling behaviour as “protective”, frame jealousy as love, or suggest that some people are naturally entitled to make decisions for others.
Racism, ableism, poverty, isolation and colonial harm can also increase barriers to safety by limiting access to services, housing, money, transport, community support or culturally safe care. For LGBTIQA+ people, structural drivers intersect in specific ways. Family violence is still often framed around a narrow “public story” of a cisgender man using violence against a cisgender woman in a heterosexual relationship. While this is important, it is incomplete.
When it becomes the only story, abuse in LGBTIQA+ relationships, family-of-origin violence, identity-based abuse, and violence against trans and gender diverse people can be harder to recognise, respond to and prevent. Preventing violence means challenging the systems, myths and inequalities that allow abuse to be minimised, excused or missed.
Campaign Partners
Uniting for change
Pride in Respect is led by Living Proud, in partnership with WAAC, TransFolk WA and GRAI. Together, these organisations bring deep community connection, specialist knowledge and long-standing experience supporting LGBTIQA+ people across Western Australia.
Living Proud is the lead organisation for the campaign and has supported the wellbeing of LGBTIQA+SB people in Western Australia since 1974. Its work includes support services, training, education, community resources and advocacy for sexuality, gender and bodily diverse communities.
WAAC provides sexual health and support services across Western Australia, with a strong focus on HIV, sexual health, LGBTIQA+ inclusion, stigma and discrimination.
TransFolk WA provides peer support, resources, advocacy and community connection for trans and gender diverse people and their loved ones in Western Australia.
GRAI is Western Australia’s specialist agency in LGBTI ageing and aged care, working to improve inclusion, safety, rights and wellbeing for older LGBTI people.
By working together, the Pride in Respect partners help ensure the campaign reflects the diversity of LGBTIQA+ communities – including young people, older people, trans and gender diverse people, people living with HIV, and people navigating health, family, relationship, community and service systems. This partnership approach supports a campaign that is community-informed, evidence-based and grounded in the belief that every LGBTIQA+ person deserves safety, dignity and respect.
Resources
Services & information library.
PiR Podcast
Listen & start the conversation.
Our Stories
The stories that empower us.
“Violence loves invisibility – it thrives when no one sees it.”
— Bree, Survivor-Advocate.