In an effort to raise awareness about the particular ways in which violence affects LGBT people, Sarah's Inn, the Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association, and the Oak Park Library co-sponsored a community forum on domestic violence in the LGBT Community. A large reception room in the newly refurbished library offered a comfortable setting for the evening event.
After opening comments by Mary Ruth Coffey, executive director of Sarah's Inn, the West Side counseling agency that provides a range of services to survivors of domestic violence, it was Joanne Trapani's turn at the mike. As the proudly out President of the Village of Oak Park, Trapani said she was delighted to have been asked to participate. She began by speaking of how hard it is for any community to admit that violence exists within its midst and warned against the misguided view that individual women can simply choose not to enter into an abusive relationship or situation.
'We don't want to believe that with some bad luck, anybody in this room can be a victim of domestic violence,' she said. Trapani underlined the need to demand of all levels of government that they take a more committed approach to same-sex domestic violence. Drawing a parallel with the current fight for equal marriage rights, she posited that it is in the larger sense of 'domesticity' that gay people are being ignored.
Trapani mentioned that Oak Park introduced a domestic-partner registry well before the city of Chicago did and listed some of the institutional policies and private initiatives that have been successful in protecting the rights of women and supporting the LGBT community. She stressed that such programs should now be 'exported' so that surrounding communities can also benefit from the support systems that Oak Park has developed.
The second part of the forum consisted of break-out sessions wherein discussions were led by counselors, social workers, healthcare providers, legal experts, and other people whose job it is to intervene and guide victims of violence.
Carrol Smith, a nurse and PhD candidate, encouraged one group to use the term 'intimate partnership violence' instead of the more traditional 'domestic violence' as it would better express the reality that acts of violence between partners or people who are dating don't only happen behind closed doors.
Just as violence can take many forms, it will often escalate. This gradation is what Braden Berkey, director of Behavioral Health & Social Services at Howard Brown Health Center, focused his remarks on. From psychological intimidation, to the placing of financial constraints, or even the withholding of medication, violence may go through a series of stages before bouts of physical battering occur. Berkey said that Howard Brown is trying to educate the community so that more people will be able to recognize the signs of abuse. He also pointed out that while roughly 55 percent of their clients are men, Chicago has not one shelter for male victims of domestic violence.
This was reinforced by Jay Mueller, a transgender writer and educator who works at UIC's Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns. 'Except for Boston, I haven't been able to find any men's shelters for male survivors of abuse.' Mueller then explained the further difficulties encountered by gender-variant persons when they decide to seek help. Speaking of the interaction with shelter workers he said, 'Because of the way they look, their gender identity, or gender presentation, is unnerving.' In some cases these victims are simply turned away, leading to what Mueller called 'a double-whammy, a compounding of issues' that sees transgender persons being victimized twice.
Assuming LGBT individuals get temporary protection from a shelter and subsequently want to ensure their long-term safety, they must turn to the courts. Heather Irmie, assistant director of the UIC Campus Advocacy Network, and Cara Thaxton, Victims Advocacy Coordinator at Horizon, gave a summary of the legal implications and complications that arise for LGBT people. Irmie said it is not uncommon for victims to be arrested by police officers who can't figure out which of two feuding male partners is responsible for the violence.
Of all the judges she has appeared before when accompanying clients, Thaxton declared that not one had completed the 40-hour training required for domestic violence service providers. While the state of Illinois does not make it mandatory for judges to attend such a course, there are those who would certainly benefit from some form of education in sensitivity. 'They are making these decisions based on legal aspects, which is to some extent correct, but unfortunately they don't know the dynamics of domestic violence. They don't know the intimidation of threatening to out somebody or out their [HIV] status. It's almost like they don't get it.'
Obtaining a restraining order that can actually be enforced represents another hurdle that LGBT survivors of violence have to clear. Orders of protection prevent an abuser from coming near his/her victim and are entered into a system that is accessed by the police. 'What we see the judges in family court doing now,' Thaxton explained, 'is giving mutual restraining orders ... . So what this means is if I'm in danger I can call the police to help me but I won't have the violation of the order of protection to back me up ... . The burden of proof is almost always on the victim.'
How paradoxical that same-sex partners without kids have to appear in family court to debate domestic violence troubles while at the same time committed gay couples with children are not officially considered a family.
Other support organizations who made short presentations included Project DATE (Dating Abuse Teen Educators), a group of high school students who are working with Sarah's Inn to prevent intimate violence among their peers. LGBT Shelter Chicago, a coalition of domestic violence service providers, are also raising money to put together a network of resources and eventually build a real shelter.
The closing word came from Lisa Tonna who is manager of the Anti-Violence Project at the Center on Halsted/Horizons and also serves on the board of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. The most important part of her message was a plea for cooperation between all the organizations who offer support services. According to Tonna, the challenge is 'to make agencies entirely accessible to all LGBT and straight people ... . The point really is to make it as easy as possible for victims to get help, not to make them search for a specific agency that reflects a certain aspect of their identity. What happens when a victim of domestic violence is for instance Latina and lesbian?'
Years of experience working with the LGBT community have demonstrated to Tonna that this type of fragmentation must not be encouraged. 'In our efforts to meet a need we continue to recreate systems and responses that do not allow for the complexity of our multiple identities.' A more inclusive outlook may effectively open new doors for a number of victims of domestic violence and ultimately turn them into survivors, a term that was used a lot throughout the evening.
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