Season 7 Episode 6: Domestic Abuse in Queer Relationships

Domestic abuse gets dangerously easy to miss when our systems can only imagine one story about who victims are and what abuse looks like. David and Ruth sit down with Luke Martin, a UK-based domestic abuse trainer, consultant, and independent victim advocate, to talk about the people most likely to be misunderstood in plain sight: LGBTQ+ survivors, including those in same-sex relationships, who face bias and system failures when seeking assistance for intimate partner violence.

They dig into why an incident-based approach can flatten the reality of coercive control, especially when LGBTQ+ survivors fear the very systems they’re told to rely on—for good reason. Luke connects the dots between familial abuse, child maltreatment, conversion practices, homelessness, and the long shadow those experiences cast over adult relationships. They also talk about isolation in queer communities, chosen family, shared friend groups, and the real-world barriers to leaving when leaving means losing identity, housing, or every safe connection you have.

Along the way, Ruth, David, and Luke challenge gender stereotypes that lead professionals to arrest the “more masculine” partner, ignore violence in lesbian relationships, or assume men cannot be afraid. They explore consent, kink, and chemsex risks, and they offer practical ways to ask better questions: how someone describes their gender, relationship, and sexuality and how to keep that door open over time without pressure.

If you care about domestic abuse–informed, trauma-informed practice, domestic violence services, survivor-centred safety planning, and LGBTQ-inclusive responses, listen through and share it with a colleague.

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Transcript

Welcome And Listener Requests

Ruth Reymundo 1:06

And we're back.

David Mandel 1:07

And we're back. Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon.

Ruth Reymundo 1:10

Good afternoon on this blustery, blizzardy day.

David Mandel 1:13

Yeah.

Ruth Reymundo 1:14

Yeah.

David Mandel 1:15

How are you feeling here in cold, snowy, New England?

Ruth Reymundo 1:18

It's quite beautiful. And I've got the birds of Northern California. And the birds are like the birds are very grateful to me because everything is covered in snow. So they seem pretty happy. But I am Ruth Reymundo of the Safe and Together Institute and Safety Nexus. And who are you into?

David Mandel 1:33

Dave Mandel of all those things as well. And you're listening to Partner with Survivor. And welcome back to the show, which very excited about. But before we even dive into that, two things. One is if you're listening and a regular listener, and I'm going to make a request. If you haven't shared this with somebody and you really like the show, if you don't like the show, why are you listening? Why are you listening? Why are you listening? But it you know, but it assuming that, assuming that he's worried about my wires.

Ruth Reymundo 2:01

Yeah, he's he's tending to the wires.

David Mandel 2:03

That's right. I'm the tech support. So if you you're listening to the the show and you like it and you haven't shared it with somebody, please share it with somebody. Yeah. If you haven't thought about using it for professional development, you know, think about that because we know that's what's being done around the world. If you haven't written a review, uh we don't do this very often. I don't make these direct requests, but it's you know, it's really love it. If you're on a platform, Apple Music or Spotify or somewhere else, and you can write a review, write a review because that means more people will listen.

Ruth Reymundo 2:29

Yeah.

David Mandel 2:30

And the algorithm will bump it up. If you want to share this on your socials, please do that. But anyway, so but with that, uh, I'll turn over to Ruth to do land acknowledgement.

Ruth Reymundo 2:40

Yeah. So we are coming to you from Tunxsiss, Masako, land in the Farmington Valley near the Farmington River. And it is extremely blizzardy and snowy, and the wind is howling. And we are acknowledging any indigenous custodians of the land, past, present, and emerging, and that wisdom that that keeps us connected and keeps us in relationship, in healthy relationship with each other. So that is our land acknowledgement for the day. And I'm gonna turn it over to you to introduce our guests.

Why This Topic Matters Now

David Mandel 3:17

Yeah. I am really excited to introduce Luke Martin in a moment, and where we're gonna talk about topics that are, I think, are really critical across communities across the world. Yeah. Male victims, domestic abuse, and queer relationships, same-sex relationships, being the two big ones that we brought Luke on to talk about. Luke has a tremendous amount of experience working with female survivors as a trainer, as an independent victim advocate. But I just want to say this, put this in context, you know, that the safety of the model, while we spend a tremendous amount of time talking about the gendered responses to domestic abuse and men as parents and survivors as mothers, and the model, and we've written about this and talked about it, was designed from the beginning to be one behavioral and look at patterns across different configurations of relationships. Yeah. Very explicitly, including same-sex relationships. And then the other thing is also really because we focus on coercive control as a framework for the patterns, intersectionalities is really central to that. That's one of the things I talk about, which is which is that one of the differences between a physically violent incident-based approach and a course control-based approach, is with physical violence, you're going to be very focused on individual dynamics, injuries, behaviors, you know, sort of and and serious things like lethality and dangerousness and physical harm. But once you kind of become more pattern-based and look at course control and you're focused on entrapment, it really becomes clear that entrapment has so much to do, not just with the behaviors of the individual who chooses to act that way, but also of systems. If I can't trust a system, if a system is dangerous to me because of who I am or what I look like or how I behave or who I love or any of those things, then I'm less likely to reach out. If I think the system is dangerous to my partner, even though they're being abusive to me, I may be less likely to call and help for those systems. I want the violence and abuse to stop, but I don't want them to be harmed by the system or I don't want my children taken away because I'm in a queer relationship.

R 5:30

Yeah.

David Mandel 5:31

You think about places like Texas now that are green.

Ruth Reymundo 5:33

Yeah, totally.

David Mandel 5:34

You know, parents who are.

Ruth Reymundo 5:35

I mean, even when I was going through, you know, separation and those custody, I like that was an actual thing. You know, being out as a queer person could get your children taken away from you if you encountered the wrong divorce mediator or the wrong, you know, lawyer. Right. So that's a real that's a real thing. Yeah.

David Mandel 5:55

So just want to give that for our audience a backdrop. And so with that, I want to welcome Luke Martin onto the show. He's coming to us from the UK. And Luke, welcome to partner with a survivor. Thank you very much for Anthony.

Meet Luke Martin And His Work

Ruth Reymundo 6:07

Yeah. And so, Luke, why don't you tell everybody about yourself a little bit in your own words, and then we'll just kind of dive in.

Luke Martin 6:14

Yeah, most definitely. So I'm a trainer consultant on domestic abuse. Been working in the violence against women and girls sector for 20 years now in various roles. And I've covered domestic abuse in my law degree and was fascinated because as a very naive law student, I thought, well, why is nobody doing anything about this? And left university and moved down to work for an organization called the Dean Project, which was one of the first male domestic abuse services in the UK. So I went from there on to do my master's in law, gender, sexuality, and human rights and focused that specifically on violence against women and girls, crime types, and then went on to work with male and female victims, survivors, and then over to work with children and young people who were growing up in homes where abuse was taking place, and then on to do some work with those who harm or perpetrators, and then have sort of floated about more recently a lot of policy work within that, and most recently have published two recovery programs, one specifically for LGBT UIA or queer survivors, and one for heterosexual male victim survivors, because there was a massive gap in the UK for those client groups.

Ruth Reymundo 7:28

Yeah, there are massive gaps, and that's so real globally. So I really thank you for stepping into that space, Luke, because the in that gap uh represents immense danger and immense vulnerability. So, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what's contributing to those gaps, but also how we can all collaborate to provide better and more appropriate care for populations that often fall outside the binary narrative about domestic abuse and the need for interventions and supports. So can you can you tell me, can we start a little bit in how the system and the binary narrative is set up in a way that fundamentally challenges appropriate services for LGBTQ and queer people as well? I really want to hone in on that topic.

The Binary Narrative Leaves People Out

Luke Martin 8:32

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest challenges that we see is that if we're focusing on a binary model, there's a huge amount of invisibility of the queer community. And I'll probably use queer instead of LGBTQ. We used LGBTQ in the UK and they use different acronyms in the States, but there's a huge lack of visibility. And I think one of the biggest challenges that we see is a lack of proportionality in services. That there's this notion that you're either funding one or the other. And I see it quite a lot when I look at men's services more generally, that if we're funding support for male victims, then we're taking money away from female victims. And actually, that that's not commonly the case. And I think it's very similar when we look at queer people's experiences. This when we look at our data in the UK, one in three LGBTQ people report experiencing domestic abuse in their lifetime. A huge amount of that from family members and often as well as intimate partners. But there isn't those conversations taking place necessarily. And actually, when we look at familial abuse, that dynamic often looks very different to intimate partner abuse and is much easier to hide. Um we've seen a bit of a shift in the UK recently with lots more conversations around banning of conversion practices and conversion

Speaker 9:55

therapy. We've got governments that have been promising to ban conversion practices for decades, and they're still very much there.

Ruth Reymundo 10:03

So I I I wanna I want to kind of hone in on this because I think that there are people who will have a hard time understanding how that familial abuse, which often manifests early in life for queer people, and the child maltreatment study in Australia really showed this devastating fact that children who identify as being queer or who may also have other differences like gender diverse gender diversity, or they are also you know neurodivergent, they're not they're not that binary, that they experience some of the highest rates of child maltreatment, child sexual abuse, and child abuse, and that that actually increases exponentially when that child is a girl. And so you can guarantee that if a child has different identity or they are queer or they are non-binary, that there's probably a high likelihood that they are experiencing some form of child maltreatment. And that child maltreatment then sets that child up for life for the vulnerability of intimate partner violence. So they are not non-related, though our services and the way that we assess these things are often not linked together. So that's what I wanted to kind of show you just in your narrative, Luke, that some people won't see those two things as being linked, but they are very deeply linked. I don't know if you have some thought about that, David, because that's yeah.

David Mandel 11:49

No, I would love, you know, Luke to talk because we're often talking on the show about about partner violence, we're often talking it to child maltreatment. And I'd love you to talk about that, that aspect of familial abuse. Because I think it is such a tough spot and doesn't get enough attention. So can you discuss that a little bit?

Familial Abuse And Conversion Practices

Luke Martin 12:09

Yeah, most definitely. So I think one of the biggest challenges that I see is effectively privilege that comes into play with this. And as a heterosexual, cisgender person, you hold more privilege and anything else being perceived as less than. So what we'll often see with parents is this notion that their children are less than because they are queer, and whether that's in their sexual orientation, their gender identity, or both. And actually, what comes with that is the vulnerability. And we know all of this from all the research that we have on experiences of trauma, that if you're experiencing harm in the home, actually we're likely to see somebody use predatory behavior to be able to identify that and monopolize on that and then use harmful behaviours towards you in your intimate relationship. And actually, if you're experiencing modelling of harmful behavior growing up, it may not seem so uncomfortable. It may feel that something's something that's very normal for you when you go into an intimate relationship and you're also experiencing that harm. So I think the challenges are really around parents not feeling able to recognize experiences of queer identity. We quite often see children sort of ostracized. Again, we we see lots of conversation in the UK at the moment and thinking about the comment on sexual harm. We work with lots of clients who have experienced things like collective rape, corrective rape to try and alter their sexual orientation

Speaker 13:40

or gender identity and how some of this is somewhat normalized, and especially when it's not being criminalized or banned in the UK.

Systems Change And Service Gaps

Ruth Reymundo 13:49

So I just want to I'm I'm gonna put a little pin in this because this is a very emotional conversation for me. I grew up in conversion therapy. I witnessed violence against gay people as a tactic. It's a real thing, and a lot of people are extremely unaware of the prevalence of it. And though that does also occur in homes, right, this is also a system problem because those types of abuses are rarely just limited to a familial setting. They're often also in other settings like counseling settings, spiritual advisement settings, church settings, you know. So this is not just an issue of children who are being abused by their parents. That often leads them directly into an institutional pipeline where then they are made more vulnerable and they are and they are trafficked in a they are their labor is used, they are sexually exploited, and they're predated upon. So so this in this day and age where we're really starting to become aware of the prevalence of abuse towards vulnerable and racialized and minoritized children, this is really pertinent both to the way that we provide services to those people, how we can make them safe, how we can prevent systems from abusing and exploiting them further, because that is happening. So I want to I want to pivot a little bit over to this to the system itself, because that's where you work in. And and I want you to just talk to our listeners about your efforts inside that system to provide this safe, appropriate, and effective care to people from these populations.

Luke Martin 17:33

Yeah, most certainly. And there's been such a huge change in the 20 years that I've been doing this work. We've I would like to think we've come on leaps and bounds in how we support LGBT survivors of domestic abuse. We think about changes in law and the recognition of LGBTQ people and how that's been more supportive. When we look at our data around things like reporting in the criminal justice system, we know that for any survivor it's really, really low. Across the board in the UK, only one in five victims will ever report their experiences to the police. So what we've seen with regards to systems change is although our criminal justice system, I would suggest, is more knowledgeable now around queer people's experiences, we've got far more frontline offer of support. So I do lots of work with independent domestic violence advisors who are frontline practitioners here in the UK to upskill them. We've got some incredible Bion 4 services. So we've got Gallup, which is our national service worker with LGBTQ survivors. Um, I'm currently working with Switchboard, which is my local provision. We've got organizations like Loving Me and Trans Without Abuse, which are specific Bioinforce services for trans and non-binary survivors. Our shift in offer is massive. We've got some really incredible recovery provision. And whether that's for LGBTQ, whether that's specifically for trans and non-binary people, it just wasn't there 20 years ago. It was perceived as something that happened behind closed doors, and it's because it was two people of the same gender that there wasn't a power imbalance. And we've recognized now that actually we need to explore this a little bit more.

Coercive Control Patterns In Queer Lives

Ruth Reymundo 19:21

Yeah, that's the key, is that we've really placed that power imbalance inside a specific gender. And in in same-sex relationships and in gender career relationships, it is so much more about the pattern of behavior, the dominance thinking, the entitlement thinking, and that the behavioral reactivity and violence, oftentimes born out of trauma, right? That that we can all point to that as having empathy for that while also being very clear that those behaviors are unacceptable in intimate partnership and in consensual relationships. So, you know, I I I I want to kind of land in some of that because there's some real confusion when it comes to assessing same-sex relationships. But also I just want to, I wanna I want to throw out a couple of statistics that that I feel are really important for this framing. Because we do know, and and and you know, maybe you have further information that you want to share with people, that transgender and bisexual people experience some of the highest rates of intimate partner violence because they're experiencing violence often from both genders. That's a real thing. Intimate partner violence in female, same-sex relationships, coercive control is a real thing. And what's kind of scary is that I've seen recently some conservative groups trying to use the statistics about that type of violence to argue that same-sex people are just just as violent as heterosexual men as a way to dismiss the narrative that men's violence is a prevalent problem. So I don't know if if you want to kind of dive into the the nut of that conversation. And I think David may have some things to say about the pattern itself and the behavior, but yeah.

David Mandel 21:23

But I'd love to hear from Luke first. Yeah.

Luke Martin 21:26

Yeah. So I think by women, especially hugely invisible in services. I think they're hugely invisible with regards to support that's available. And I remember speaking to a survivor on one of the recovery programs that I was running, who had said that she had previously had a relationship with a man that had been hugely violent. She was now in a relationship with a woman and that had also been violent. And she had said, I went to a local women's service and they put me on a recovery program, but all they talked about was him as harmful and her as the victim. And it just didn't gel with my identity. And I had to keep correcting the facilitators and saying that's not my experience. And I think that arras was huge in people's recovery, when you've got to try and reinsert yourself into the narrative. It's really harmful when actually, when she came on to a queer inclusive program, what she found was she didn't have to explain her identity. And I think when we look at by women's experiences and by men's, I guess in that as well, often there's an assumption around the gender somebody's presenting as and the gender they talk about their partner as. So I've worked with lots of women who have presented as female and talked about their male partner, and people have just assumed that they were heterosexual rather than asking them. And it's a huge challenge because it just shuts down an offer of support, and actually you can't bring your whole identity to that space.

David Mandel 22:50

Yeah. It reminds me, I haven't thought about this in for ages. You know, when I started doing men's behavior change work, we had some, you know, this was for people who were arrested, and we were running same-sex groups for men. And occasionally we'd have men come in who usually pulled me aside or was in the paperwork that said that they were in a same-sex relationship. And we would give them the option, and I feel really mixed about this, looking back on it now. I think I felt mixed about it at the time, saying you're here, you're court-ordered to be here. You don't need to out yourself. If you want to refer to your partner as female, and that's and you want to do that, that's uh we're we'll support you and keep that. You know, and it's it was an imperfect solution. Prioritizing safety, there wasn't, you know, and but giving them the choice to say this you can you can get something from this. You're ordered by the court to be here, but we don't want to put you in danger, you know, from the other other people in the group who have a history of violence, who, you know, who you don't know. And looking back now, also what we know about uh men using violence, they're more likely to have very rigid gender role expectations, right? And around that goes out to sexual orientation. So it you know, I you know, that was one of my early experiences with that on the other side, which was sort of navigating or or or or being asked by systems to create a screening. Tools in systems that weren't sophisticated already about same-sex relationships. And we're missing, you know, the majority of the cases that they just number wise would be heterosexual relationships, male perpetrators, and female victims. So they really weren't set up to sort of do both ends, say this is the biggest chunk, and we need to be nuanced here. So we were pushing gender neutral language at that point, but I felt it was going to push into a gender symmetry issue in in heterosexual couples that wasn't, you know. So I think there's interesting navigations because the system is not and culturally we're not set up this way.

Ruth Reymundo 25:06

Right.

David Mandel 25:07

What I do want to go back to, if if you don't mind, Ruth, and and Luke, you don't mind going back to is I really would love to tease out. You're talking about the systems and the differences and the, you know. Look, if you can tease out a little bit, you know, some of the course of control, patterns of course of control are the nature of this history, whether it's same-sex relationship, queer relationship, no matter the gender identities, you know, of the folks who are involved on any side. And there's there's there are differences. And I'm thinking about queer people who come from homophobic, maybe religious homophobic background, who can't go back to their family. Don't feel like I'm being victimized here. And I I I I fell I came out, I fell in love with my partner, same sex. It was a huge risk with my family. I, you know, I thought for my identity. And now, and they've been telling me I'm broken and my family's told me I'm broken that's something wrong with me.

Ruth Reymundo 26:05

Or my family's dangerous.

David Mandel 26:07

Or they're dangerous, right? I mean, that's dangerous. And and now I'm being abused by my partner. How do I go back to I can't go back, like I don't feel safe going back to my family. So there are distinct dynamics, at least. I won't say difference, dynamics, both on the side of entrapment and also, but also unique strengths. If I don't go to my family, I don't feel safe calling the police, I am doing things to manage my safety. So can you talk about both what's what you notice is unique on the entrapment side and also on the strength side?

Isolation Chosen Family Housing Risk

Luke Martin 26:37

Yeah, so I think isolation is huge when I work with queer survivors. And even if they do have a good relationship with their family, they've often moved to somewhere that's more inclusive. So it's either a train or a plane or something to be able to get back to that place of safety. And actually, those sort of check-ins aren't necessarily happening. I'm, I mean, I I know it's different in the UK. We're much smaller, but I'm sort of three hours and a boat away from my parents. If I were in crisis, it would be really difficult for me to physically get there. And actually, the size of the states, you've got clusters of queer people that are going to move to your bigger cities where there's a bigger network. There's also this misconception that queer communities are huge. And actually, what we see with survivors and their partners is that often they're sharing in a friendship group. So not only do they then lose the support of their family potentially, but they also have this chosen family that often you've got a perpetrator saying, if you end the relationship, they're not going to want to talk to you. They were my friends first, or you're going to have to move somewhere else and isolate yourself further because nobody in this town city is going to want to be there for you. So I think that's really challenging. And I think we see it especially with trans and non-binary survivors as well, that actually you these communities get smaller and smaller and smaller. And then when you look at trans people, that division between trans men and trans women, and actually you're looking at tiny numbers of people that if that relationship ends, how easy it is for someone using harm to isolate that person further ostracize them from a community.

Ruth Reymundo 28:19

And this really puts into context suicide in queer communities because of the dislocation and isolation, lack of support, lack of safe housing. Often a tremendous amount of financial vulnerability as well. If you are if you so I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just say I think of it as you know, the the the queers who've got their family and their roots and their community, and then there's the rest of us, you know, and that's a very very vulnerable position to be in if you're a person who has none of that and has had to fully relocate themselves to a different country sometimes for safety, yeah, or to a different region or area just to be able to live freely and mostly safely as you are.

Luke Martin 29:17

And that's I guess on that what we think about is access to resource. Actually, I've got a really supportive family, they were really supportive when I came out, but actually what that meant was that I felt safe to go off for further education and was supported in accessing university. A majority, well, a quarter of homeless people in the UK under the age of 25 are LGBTQ people. So we've got a hugely disproportionate number of young people who have been kicked out of home or not felt safe at home. And then what that impacts is their access to education, which then impacts their employment opportunities. And actually, we've got this really polarized uh, I guess, a disparity of wealth within the queer community, that we've got a number of people that have got access to a huge amount of resource, and then the other end those that most certainly don't. And actually, I see that in services because if you're working full-time and you've got access to resource, you're far less likely to access the charities that I work with because they offer support Monday to Friday, nine to five. If that's your working hours, it's not going to be suitable. But actually, I see lots of queer people that are accessing private therapy and things like that because they've got the finances to do so. But also that impacts, as you say, things like housing provision and access to we've got a handful of LGBTQ specific refuges in the UK, but it's not representative of how many queer people are experiencing domestic abuse.

Ruth Reymundo 30:51

Right.

Luke Martin 30:51

Yeah. So there's some real challenges around that.

Ruth Reymundo 30:54

So you never got to the strengths part I'm aware of, and I want to hear strengths because that's really important.

David Mandel 30:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would love, I'd love to help professionals know, because I think a lot of times they judge people who won't. And I'll say this and kind of flip it over to you. Because actually I'm sitting here with a little bit of vibration going on. Because I I want to say to my colleagues, as I'm listening to this conversation and participating in it, you know, which is just how much the domestic violence community can sort of ignore these things that we're talking about, sort of family, identity, connection, community, place, and sort of insist on these ideas of separation, equal safety, call the police and and have this very myopic, limited view of safety and what is important to people. And, you know, and I've worked on cases like this where people are like, you know, no, that my identity as being queer is who I am. And I I won't lose that. I won't have that taken away from me. And so yeah, I'm willing to stay with it and be supportive. I feel like people are going to try to define me away from that or tell me there's something wrong with that. And just so, or I know I'll lose my community. And I think people kind of like they dismiss it. I mean, I'm I've seen professionals over my career be like, well, they could die. Well, the the person's experience may be that they're gonna die without their oxygen, without their people, without their community. They're gonna be out there alone, they're gonna be vulnerable, and they'd rather, and I've heard this from survivors of all backgrounds, I'd rather be at risk connected to people I know in places I know that are familiar to me than be alone someplace and feel like I'm not safe. So uh this is a just so this is my little rant about to my professional colleagues, which is don't like, don't collap, don't, don't poo-poo these things. Don't kind of push them off as sort of secondary to your definition of safety. So anyway, I needed to say that. So I thought I was sitting on the page.

Ruth Reymundo 32:55

Okay, now we're getting to the strength. So that's not true.

David Mandel 32:58

But this is the flip side of it, that you know, which is what should people look for? Because you're saying value and see when they're staying connected to community. In fact, they may be staying connected to somebody who's close to both them and the perpetrator.

Ruth Reymundo 33:12

For a reason.

Strengths Safety Planning Partnering

David Mandel 33:13

For a reason for lots of reasons, right? But can you tell me if if you were talking to professionals and say this person is actively trying to keep themselves safe, mentally as healed as possible, mentally as together as possible, economically together as possible? What might they miss if they weren't really tuned in?

Luke Martin 33:35

I think it's the same when we think about any survivor. Any survivor is has already safety planned for themselves. They know the risk better than anybody else. And we need to be having those conversations with the survivor. What does this look like for you? Where does that risk sit? What is it that you're worried about? And it was interesting, David, when you talk about coercion control earlier and men's experiences, this notion that men don't talk about being afraid. But what I often see when I'm working with men is this notion of worry. I'm not afraid that I'm going to be killed. I'm not afraid that I'm going to be seriously injured, but I'm worried about certain things. And sometimes that worry is around things like being ostracized from a community. But actually, often it's when I reflect back when I say, I'd be quite afraid if my partner had done that to me. And I think there's a sense of safety in that, in having a professional that recognises that what you're experiencing is scary or is abusive. And actually, what I see when I work with queer clients is often that abuse is dismissed or it's minimized in the risk level. So being able to name it as something that's harmful, but also drawing out those patterns of behaviour. I think when I work with queer survivors, it's very incident-led rather than exploring that pattern of behaviour. And I think that's quite common when I see counter allegations. So thinking about what professionals need to be more skilled in is identifying that who's doing what to whom, where that power does it, what that pattern of behaviour looks like. And when we think about, you know, we've got the power threat meaning framework that looks at what have you had to do to stay alive? And actually, that's often the starting point when we think about career survivors. What have you had to do to keep you alive, to be able to sit in front of me today and have this conversation around the abuse that you've experienced? And I think a lot of it's around managing any kind of shock. That I've worked with lots of clients that have had to do things that are fairly shocking to be able to stay alive. And whether that's in their relationship, whether it's in wider communities or wider society, actually it's worked for them. But often what that looks like when it comes into service is complex or compound needs, multiple compound needs for survivors. So thinking about the importance of that multi-agency work as well, that no single agency should be holding risk. And actually, when we're thinking about what this looks like, we're thinking about those who harm. And what we need to reflect on is what's our offer with regards to behavioural change. Because literally, you know, given the example you've shared, David, that do you have to suppress a part of your identity to be able to engage in behavioural change? We've got very few LGBTQ behaviour change programs in the UK. And actually, you know, when what we see is this one size fits all model, and this is the programme that we've got. Either you come on it and engage with it as best you can, otherwise, you can't have support. And we see it with women who use harm as well, that actually we don't necessarily have anything bespoke and comes down to intersectionality. There are so many different parts to somebody's identity. Which part is their priority? Is their career this their priority? Or do they want a service that works with black and brown communities or older people or looks at Eurodiversity or disability? But you might identify with all of those characteristics, and what do you want from a service? And we won't know that without speaking to the survivor, speaking to the person using harm, and finding out what's going to be the best fit.

Women Who Use Harm And Bias

Ruth Reymundo 37:26

And this is really where partnering is so important. And, you know, one of the reasons why I was so captured by the Safe and Together model was because of the concept of partnering, which really put squarely back on the responsibility shoulders of the practitioner to be curious, to uncover the needs and the context of the victim, and to meet them in where they were, not overlay onto them their beliefs about how to achieve safety or what the appropriate relationship was for them, but to really listen to that victim survivor and hear what safety meant to them, what relationship means to them, what the patterns of behaviors are that were causing danger and harm and removing liberties. And and I really want to go back to the fact that there really is no appropriate resource for behavior change for queer women. There is none really globally. And and and I I really feel like the roots of that are in our failure to understand power dynamics, live in every relationship, and that women are capable of violence and coercive control. But also deeply in that is this belief that uh violence out of men is purely a dominance thing instead of a fear thing and a shame thing and a desperation thing to maintain a connection and to have that that glue, that cement with a person. I I really feel like we would need to get much better at understanding violence and its behaviors and its energies in a way that can acknowledge that it lives in every single body that is human. It doesn't matter how it's dressed or how it identifies or what its gender expression is or who it loves or what it believes, it lives in every single one of us.

David Mandel 39:52

So I I would love to explore this, the three of us together for a moment, because I agree with what you just said a thousand percent. And you and I know you think about this a lot because we talk about it sometimes ad nauseum, about men's violence and how it shapes wider society and how it's tied to patriarchy.

Ruth Reymundo 40:15

Society depends on men's violence. So there's a difference in that there's a real systemic support for men's violence, not as much for women's violence, but you know, it depends on power and control of the, you know, so yeah, can we talk about this?

David Mandel 40:29

Luke, I'll be interested in hearing your episode because you just kind of made the nuance I wanted to kind of bring out for the audience, but just sort of you you the first statement was about is about any of us could be, and I believe this, and I've always said this both men and women could be violent. Violence can exist in people in queer relationships, doesn't really, it's a human challenge. And I always say you say control is uh is a human challenge. It's a you how you deal with things you can't control, right? And you just had the other one of the other pieces I wanted to hear, which was there's societal structural support for male violence. For male violence towards anyone. To anyone, man, boys, boys, women, girls. So anyway, so that's so Luke, what do you want to add to that? Because I think you you obviously must spend a lot of time thinking and talking about this.

Luke Martin 41:14

Yeah, most definitely. And the reality is we all look for control because it gives us a sense of safety. And it comes back to again, uh we're moving towards the more trauma-informed work way of working with those who harm. I think the challenge that we see is that when we see women especially using harm, is it's deemed so different to the norb that we perceive men as sort of strong and physical and emotionless, and women as kind and caring and nurturing. And when we do see women using harmful behaviours, it sits so far outside of that woman box that it's hugely demonized. When I look at our convictions in the UK for women who use the same level of violence or harm as a male perpetrator, they're often given much longer sentences because it's seen as so unwomanly. And actually, that brings in some of the challenges around behavior change when we're working with women and whether they're they're heterosexual or they're queer. It's something that sits outside of that norm, and people don't feel comfortable with it. And it's fascinating when I talk about women who have used harm. Commonly the first question I get asked was, Well, what happened to them? And I don't get asked that when I'm talking about men who have used harm. That we often look at almost at whether it's mental health or whether there's trauma, this want to diagnose and almost excuse away women's use of harmful behavior that I don't necessarily see when I'm talking about men's experiences. And there's a real challenge in that. I feel like we're moving a little bit more. Again, it comes back to that notion of well, what happened to you? And we're seeing that more now with men who are using harmful behavior, and not that it's a justification, but it gives us an understanding as to where somebody's at, and as you say, working with them, where they're at on that sense.

Ruth Reymundo 43:09

You know, the the only an effective way to really ask that question and not collude with someone is to ask the next question. And that is, is how is that showing up in your relationships right now? And what do you need to change? And are you willing to do it? Can we support you in doing it? We cannot support you in doing it if you cannot admit that it's a problem. You know, so so for me, uh, I'm always as a person who's experienced violence from both men and women, and physical injury from both men and women, and sexual harm from both men and women, I can say squarely that it's very dangerous for us to stay in that trauma-based question. And the assumption behind it is that men are innately violent. And that women need to be not violent in order to counteract that. That's our job. And so we're endlessly locked in this binary violence, not violent. You're a nurturer, you're a violent, you're violent, that's your function. And it's terrible because it's not real and it increases the likelihood that people will be violent. And it is so wrong. It's so wrong.

David Mandel 44:28

You know, I'm sitting here, you know, with two thoughts. One is what you're saying, it's sort of like the visibility of domestic abuse in, and I'm saying visibility from both systems in lesbian relationships, and the dismissive and expect expectation of it in men and in men's relationships with each other. And, you know, you hear boys will be boys, you know, and then or miss stereotyping around kink. And then unfortunately, and like these things, we do these conversations, things I haven't thought about in a long time. The horrible example, and I think I'm getting it right. Unfortunately, there's more than one of these, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Ruth Reymundo 45:08

Dahmer.

Kink Consent Chemsex And Policing

David Mandel 45:08

Dahmer, you know, one of his last victims, I believe, escaped and was returned to him by the police. Yes.

Ruth Reymundo 45:19

Yeah.

David Mandel 45:20

Am I getting this right?

Ruth Reymundo 45:21

Yes. Yeah.

David Mandel 45:21

And the police attitude was this was just, you know, kink, gay men, violent, you know, and and it just I get sick to my stomach with the idea that the police, that this man ran to some to help. And the people who very should have helped him returned him. How horrific to the person who ended up killing him.

Ruth Reymundo 45:45

And but that's how much the experience of so many people who are not entitled and who live squarely in that vulnerable place, that actually we are returned to our perpetrators often by those systems. We are forced back into contact with them. We are sent back to them as children, as adults, that is a real experience. And this is where the system needs a little mirror to hold up to itself. And we need to hold that mirror up and we need to demand better.

David Mandel 46:19

Yeah. That's a real time. So what what what's your experience? With hopefully nothing that extreme. But so that boys will be boys. This is boys, men being violent with each other, just what you expect. It's kink and that, you know, and and so stereotyping about communities. What's your what's your experience about that? And even about the con, you know, people will talk, and I think more openly. This is actually this isn't this whole other topic. Think more openly to its credit. We'll talk more openly about kink and the difference between kink and violence, you know, sort of non-consensual behavior in the queer community. I think that's actually a conversation that was more there than some other places. But can you talk about some of this? Pick pick any one of those threads you want.

Luke Martin 47:01

Yeah, most definitely. So thinking about, I'm gonna start at the end and work my way back. Thinking about what you were saying, Ruth, about being taken back to the people causing you harm and see it loads with the young people that are coming through into services, whether actually it's their parents or siblings or both that are causing harm to them, especially if they're even 18, 19 parental home is considered the safe place for them. So whether it's housing that are returning them back to their family of origin or whether it's police taking them back there, that it's a huge risk. Parents often not being perceived as a risk factor for LGBTQ people and that vulnerability that's there. The other challenge that you see with that return to family is parents contacting services. My child's missing, do you know where they are? Have you seen them? Have they presented to you as homeless? Plays a huge factor. Thinking about some of the other elements that you're talking about, David, things like the pink element, especially when we think about men in same-sex relationships. We've had a huge increase in the use of chem sex in the UK, especially with gay buying men who have sex with men, and the vulnerability of that. So a lack of understanding around consent. Our education system is awful in teaching young people what consent is, and this belief that even if you're under the influence, you're able to consent. And I worked on a case where we had some reports of people who were signing what they perceived to be legally binding contracts on what other people could do to them whilst they were under the influence of these substances, and in some cases, if they were unconscious, and that lack of understanding that if you don't, if you're not able to withdraw your consent, you're not able to consent. We've had some quite significant changes in the UK recently. So things like the banning of strangulation in pornography. We've got our legislation now around non-fatal strangulation, non-fatal suffocation, and it puts an end to the rough sex defense in our criminal cases where there's been a death, but actually it doesn't really go far enough. The other challenge, as you say, is around that perception of men and masculinity. What I probably see most is an assumption from professionals that regardless of the gender of the person, the person deemed to be more masculine is automatically assumed to be the perpetrator or the person using harm. And often it isn't the case, but actually it becomes much easier to frame it that way when we think about a heteronormative model of what domestic abuse looks like. And I remember working on a case about a decade ago where a professional police officer had said to the victim, You look like the man we're going to arrest you. And they were both men. So those assumptions, those biases, whether it's conscious or unconscious, that people hold around this.

Ruth Reymundo 50:11

Whoa, you know, you just opened up that mask, that mask on the victim pipeline, because that's a real thing.

David Mandel 50:18

I'm laughing because it's just it's just so ludicrous. And unfortunately, it's easy to imagine at the same time that somebody would do that and say, oh, you look like a man. And uh and again, it goes back to it's terrible.

Ruth Reymundo 50:33

It's terrible because it the way it shows up in in in in female gay culture is just absolutely terrible. You know, just that that way of thinking that that just makes people blind to the realities of human behavior is so dangerous, it's so wounding too. And on a level, you know, what it does is it supports that belief that if you were truly a masculine person, you would never be abused or dominated. And that is such shame. That is such loads of bullshit shame, excuse me, uh cranky Latina survivors coming out right now. Of course, cranky bisexual Latino survivors coming out.

David Mandel 51:18

I I just it makes me think about going to a workshop where we were years ago, where I was a you know with a group of people where we were exploring sort of masculine and feminine energy, you know, put it that way. And going back to you, this how much built in this expectation of men collapsing of masculinity and man and masculinity, masculine presenting, right? All this stuff with violence. And so people were asked to kind of model movement through what they perceived as masculine energy. And almost everybody to a person stomped around the room.

Ruth Reymundo 51:53

As a man?

David Mandel 51:53

Yeah, well, exactly. But there was one guy, and he happened to be gay, and he skipped across the room because we were talking about sort of forward momentum. And and the idea was sort of masculine energy in this case was being framed as sort of how do you, you know, for you know, forward, because the the one extreme of this is this idea of aggression, or you have to be assertive and or, but it can be also exploration or curiosity, let's say. And so ever but almost everybody was like stomping forward across the room. And this one guy was just skipping, and all of us were like, oh my God, we interpreted forward momentum, male forward momentum as angry aggressive. And and I was it it stuck with me. Yeah. I mean, it's another example just coming through all this. I think this theme that sort of this these stereotypes and these expectations of men have such broad and deep implications. You know, it's why we don't reach out to men of any sexual orientation who are perpetrating and saying you can help. It's why we're more kind of kind, quote unquote, to women, more understanding around women who use violence. You know, it's all these things.

Supporting Closeted Clients With Curiosity

Ruth Reymundo 53:03

It's also why we don't we don't see women who are violent. It's also why we work so hard to push away the the different variations of violence that don't show up in the the really rigid way we've talked about, you know, through services or through funding, right, right, pathways or through service delivery. You know, I feel like we could talk forever with you, Luke. Seriously. I'm very grateful for this conversation. I really hope our listeners are learning a lot. And and, you know, there's one more challenge that I would really love to bring up, and that is that a lot of people assume that queer people know exactly how their own identities show up and are comfortable reaching out via their identity for services. And that's not actually real. A lot of people who have diverse identities and sexuality are still very much frightened, don't have the language to describe their own experience, or are resistant to using that language because it feels dangerous. And so, how do you support people who are deeply vulnerable in that way and may not even have their own ability to articulate their relationship of what's happening? Perhaps that relationship is secret because they're still living in a community where they have to be closeted deeply and they don't use the same language as services. They're not as comfortable describing their identity, but they are in same-sex relationships. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Luke Martin 54:56

Yeah, so I think the the simplest thing to do is to ask somebody, how do you describe? How do you describe your relationship? How do you describe your gender? How do you describe your sexual orientation? And actually, we know the reality is people might not feel able to answer those questions. But if you're proposing that as a question, you're instantly signifying this is a safe space. I know that you might identify as something other than heterosexual, I know that you might be in a relationship with somebody of the same gender, or you might identify as non-binary. But it's continuing to ask that question. We think about sort of routine questioning. If we can just say to somebody, I'm just going to check. Last time we met, you said you weren't sure how you described your sexual orientation. And that's okay, but I just want to check if you've had any more thoughts on that or if you'd like to explore that a little bit more. Again, in the UK, we've been talking about men who have sex with men, and it's a really sort of sexual health model way of working, that we work with lots of men who identify as heterosexual straight, but are having sexual relationships with men to the point where we've just categorized it as something else. And actually, because we need to be considerate of it when we're thinking about sexual health, it started to sort of seep into other areas of society. And actually, that self-identifying is huge. How would you describe it? How would you describe your partner? That it's the flexibility in that. And I guess that validating, am I right in saying?

Ruth Reymundo 56:31

Right.

Luke Martin 56:32

Am I right in defining this for you? Because quite often we make these assumptions where we assume what somebody's gender is or their sexual orientation, and then we try and impose what we know onto somebody else rather than giving them the space to explore that themselves.

Ruth Reymundo 56:47

And I just want to say that it's really important for people to have that curiosity and that open door because it may be that the person who is abusing that person is coercing them and that person is closeted, or they may identify as heterosexual. And you need to be able to hear that information in a different way in order to identify things like coercion, blackmail, and stalking.

David Mandel 57:17

Right. These are real vulnerabilities. We're also identifying and mapping vulnerabilities in an intersectional lens that can be really, you know, specific versions of course of control. You know, you're you're not real. I mean, the statement, you're not really, is can be filled in with you're not really black, you're not really this, you're not really this, you're really gay, you're not really black, you're not really, you know, and it's a way to one-up somebody and say, I get to define you. And and the truth is, unfortunately, we see that behavior in professionals as well as perpetrators, you know, where professionals like, well, this is what this looks like. This is what this is supposed to be. You don't seem to fit that pattern, you know, and versus doing Luke what you're saying, which is really kind of an educated, curious partnership where you may hold information about a diversity of experiences and how other people have done it, which is one of the great things I found that you can make room for as a professional. You may be like, oh, I talked to this person, this is the way they thought about it. And I talked to this person, and I saw this person go through this, and they were where you were, which doesn't mean you're going to go down the same path. But I can share those with you because you're living in your, you may be living in your little isolated bubble. And and I I just, I just again also, again, always speaking to the professionals of the audience, as you say, you know, your experience isn't when it's not used with arrogance, it's not used with you know dominance or defining other people's experience. Your wide range, you may have a wider education than somebody who comes from maybe a highly controlled background. And so your knowledge may be a huge asset to them.

Ruth Reymundo 58:58

Right, right. So I know we need to move to wrapping up, and I'm I'm actually really sad about that. This is a very meaningful conversation. These are deeply vulnerable populations that have a lot of vulnerability behind them. You know, when we speak about um the vulnerability of queer people, we're often speaking about people who have been highly abused and coerced in their families of origin, maybe stripped of resources and made extremely vulnerable. Perhaps they are people who have been system, you know, intervened in multiple times because their family has claimed they're mentally ill or that they've run away. And so they may have system interactions which make them look like they're unstable, right? And so this curiosity about this person's experience is really key to their safety. And and I would love to hear Luke, just as we move to wrapping up, what you would say to professionals in this space about working with those diverse and vulnerable populations.

Luke Martin 1:00:10

So I would start by saying be professionally curious. We are always learning. We're learning more about domestic abuse, we're learning more about queer identity. So ask lots of questions and actually take the onus on yourself to go and learn elsewhere. Think about how you can work collaboratively with other professionals. You probably have got LGBTQ services in your area, in your states, where you can do some joint working. Maybe you're all domestic abuse practitioners, then going over there and educating them on what domestic abuse might look like, and sort of that that knowledge of exchange is vital. I think knowing that you won't have all of the answers for survivors that you're supporting, but there's so much information out there now. There's a wealth of resources to be able to go to. And there's also something in being vulnerable and saying, I've not heard that before, or I don't know. I think what I quite often see with professionals is that if they don't know the answer to something, they make things up and it's somewhat dangerous rather than going to you know what, actually, I've not heard that before. Let me go away and have a look at what that means or what resources, or even asking survivors what that means. I've seen it quite a lot recently with polyamory, and I guess more so because we see it more frequently within queer communities, not that it's something that's queer specific. But going to somebody, okay, well, explain what that means for you, um, what that relationship dynamic looks like, who's safe for you, who might feel less safe. How can we map this when we're thinking about risk? But lean on other professionals with more knowledge, maybe with lived experience, and help shape services through that lived experience.

Ruth Reymundo 1:02:01

And what would you say to victim survivors as well, Luke?

Luke Martin 1:02:07

That there's support out there. There are professionals who are highly skilled. But even if you're accessing more generic services that aren't LGBTQ specific, they will have resources and hopefully have knowledge that are able to support you. That you don't have to go to an LGBTQ specific service if you don't feel like it's the right fit for you. If you're in a small community and you're worried that you're going to know workers that might be there, then actually think about what mainstream support might be available. Think about if you're not sure of the dynamic of your relationship, there are helplines that you can call and say, this is happening and I'm not sure if it's right, I'm not sure if it's harmful, but can I explore it with you? Take that first step. And if you need to take that first step anonymously, then take that first step anonymously. And if you're concerned about your own behavior, there is support provisions for that behavior change.

David Mandel 1:03:05

Right. That's great. Really appreciate that. And we'll we'll be including whatever you want in our show notes for anybody who's listening to check out the show notes below the you know, where the episode is playing. So, Luke, thank you so much for your time.

Ruth Reymundo 1:03:18

Yeah.

David Mandel 1:03:18

And your your expertise and your commitment to to the queer community, to male victims, you know, to victims of all backgrounds. Uh I just we can't be talking about this enough. So thank you for for coming on partner with Survivor.

Ruth Reymundo 1:03:32

So thank you, Luke, for joining us. So you've been listening to Partnered with a Survivor, and I'm still Ruth Reymundo Mandel, and you.

David Mandel 1:03:40

I'm still David Mandel. And please again still, if you you're listening and you came to the end of the podcast.

Ruth Reymundo 1:03:46

You're a winner.

David Mandel 1:03:46

You're a winner. Please share this link. Yeah, you hung in there. Yeah, you got to the end and you get the little prize at the bottom of the Cheerios box, whatever. I don't know.

Ruth Reymundo 1:03:55

But there's no prize at the end. There's no prize at the end. We're the prize.

David Mandel 1:03:59

Our guests are the prize. But again, check us out at safetyinstitute.com, check out our virtual academy at Academy.safety Institute.com. Follow us on all sorts of media that we're out there on LinkedIn and social media. So and we out of the way, we're not going to be able to do that.