Series 2 Sandra Dickson
- Series 2 Episode 4
- 10 min
Abuse needs silence to thrive.
In this series, Simonne Butler, herself a survivor of a vicious attack by her ex-partner, meets those brave enough to break their silence.
NARRATOR: People who are part of the rainbow community are more than twice as likely to experience partner violence than their straight counterparts.
Sandra has been working for over 30 years promoting healthy relationships in the rainbow community. These days, she lives with her partner near Hamilton.
[chatting and laughing]
It's a long way from her first relationship with another woman.
SANDRA: My first serious relationship with a woman was abusive, and it took me an awfully long time to call it that.
When I came out, I was 18. This was in the 80s, in the Hutt Valley. My father was so horrified that it wasn't okay for me to stay at home any longer. So, I moved in with her.
When sort of controlling stuff started, it started by her being jealous. So, one example of that is that we went to a women's dance one night and I was inside dancing, having fun, and someone came running outside to tell my girlfriend that I was getting too down and dirty on the dance floor with someone. Essentially the lesbian police were operating, to make sure the bisexual women didn't get too friendly or something.
And so my girlfriend goes inside all, "What's going on here?" and I was dancing with my sister. You know, it wasn't really that exciting or that sexy, but it's an example of how the community was behaving at the time. That was excusing what was going on inside our relationship.
And then, over time it got more and more violent. I didn't even know what to call what was happening to me. You know, I thought violence was stuff that men did to women. I didn't think it had anything to do with being in a relationship with a woman.
The violence in our relationship kept getting worse and worse the longer it went on. When I actually left, I looked at my body in the mirror and I had bruises and cuts all over my legs. And all the while it was happening, I wasn't calling it abusive. I was calling it, um, "she has problems with anger."
SIMONNE: She's dealing with her frustration.
SANDRA: She's dealing with her frustration.
SIMONNE: I didn't realise my relationship was abusive either. I made so many excuses for him because of his childhood and his violent upbringing.
SANDRA: The only person that can change that kind of stuff is the person themselves.
I don't talk about that relationship all the time when I do this work, but it's probably always here, driving me doing this work, I think.
NARRATOR: After leaving this relationship, Sandra began working with organisations focused on domestic violence.
SANDRA: Working in refuges, I'm listening to woman after woman after woman talk to me about their experience of violence and abuse. And over time, I'm going, "Gosh, that's not that different from what happened to me."
And I think once I started calling it an abusive relationship, then I started trying to talk to other people about this whole area. And to do that, to be honest, I had to go overseas.
So, this is a book published in the States. I think I'm the only non-American in it.
SIMONNE: This is something that people in the rainbow communities can look at, and it's got stories about people like them.
SANDRA: Yeah, and I think it was the first time anyone had tried to do this. So when they asked me to be part of it, I was like, "Yeah, that would be fantastic."
NARRATOR: Sandra started creating more locally-based information about five years ago. The latest project has a groundbreaking focus on young people in rainbow communities, based on school surveys and focus groups.
SANDRA: We worked with Waikato queer youth to find out really what young people in the rainbow community were learning about how to have healthy relationships. The results basically showed us, overall, people aren't getting access to good information. There was a real strong cry for help there.
YOUNG PERSON: I didn't even know what queer was until I was 13. Um, I grew up in a conservative family. Nothing was queer. And then I found out what trans or bisexual was. And I was like, oh my god, epiphany.
[laughter]
SANDRA: I think one of the things that I hear lots is that when there is healthy relationship stuff in schools, it doesn't have anything about us in it, right?
YOUNG PERSON: It feels like a stock standard answer when you ask for that kind of thing is, "Oh, Google it."
SIMONNE: Do you have to deal with people that have families that are not accepting?
YOUNG PEOPLE: Absolutely. All the time. Yeah.
SANDRA: I think some of this stuff with our families being unsafe for us has a really big impact on the relationships we have later too. I really do.
YOUNG PERSON: Especially coming back to that internalised phobia. If your family doesn't accept you, then how are you going to learn to accept yourself, or accept your partner in the future, to provide a healthy relationship for them?
SANDRA: We still live in a world where our rainbow identities are not treated as the beautiful things that they are.
Homophobia and biphobia and transphobia are still everyday experiences for us. So we are dealing with being told over and over and over again that there's something wrong with us.
And then we're supposed to have relationships with people like us that somehow push all of that away.
SIMONNE: Do you think abusive relationships in the rainbow communities are different than in the straight community?
SANDRA: Some things are the same. I always say, a punch is a punch is a punch. It's a horrible thing.
But there are some kinds of behaviour that have a different meaning inside the rainbow world. One example of that, I would say, is that we know that isolation is something that happens in all relationships that are abusive. Inside the rainbow world, that's even more effective if you stop your partner being connected to the rainbow community, because we don't talk about relationships outside.
We're not sure it'll be okay to talk about our relationships outside our community. We're especially not going to talk about them if there's stuff going on in them that's not okay.
And then we've got the kinds of violence that are unique to us, right? One example of that is for trans folk, having your hormones or your gender-affirming clothing hidden, destroyed or taken away by a partner. That only happens to trans people.
We also get situations where medication for HIV and AIDS is withheld or hidden from people.
SIMONNE: What about the threat to out somebody?
SANDRA: That does happen. It especially happens to people who are really scared about coming out, yeah. So for younger people, or for people who not everyone in their life knows.
Most of our relationships are loving and beautiful and fabulous. And actually, abuse has nothing to do with sexuality or gender identity. It has to do with power and control.
Rainbow relationships talked about violence and made it clear that the Police are there to help.
Toxic masculinity is rife inside the rainbow community in all kinds of ways.
YOUNG PERSON: You just have to jump on Grindr and see "No Femmes".
SANDRA: Yeah.
No femmes allowed. We see that stuff on Grindr. It's a real thing. No fats, no femmes, no Asians, you know. There we have it. All of the body shaming, racism, all of that stuff that's in there.
Where are the healthy masculinity role models? We know that most men struggle to find healthy masculinity role models. That's certainly true for trans folks too, and it's also true for lesbians and bisexuals who identify as butch.
There's a whole bunch of stuff around masculinity that is soaked into the rainbow community in all kinds of ways that can often be entwined with violence. Not always, but can be entwined with violence.
And so, one of the things that I've started doing is offer training to organisations that are working in family violence, including New Zealand Police.
Interestingly enough, when our first research came out, the Police were the first group to get on the phone to me and say, "Please help us do this better. We look at these research results and we know we're not doing enough."
NARRATOR: There is much more to be done. It's a huge task, but Sandra is helped by now having a wonderful healthy relationship with Becks.
SANDRA: My current partner is just gorgeous in every way possible really. I'm really lucky.
I guess one of the things I think is interesting about healthy relationships, and I don't know if we talk about enough, is curiosity. Like being really excited to learn more about the person you're with. That is such a good sign.
Having fun with your partner. The way you weave someone into the rest of your life too.
I know Beck's and my second date, I met their whole family. Because Beck's was like, "Right, I think Sandra is going to be important. Better show all those skeletons first," you know [laughs]. Being bisexual, being part of the rainbow community for me is just the biggest gift. I love it. I love the ways that we come together. I love the support we offer each other.
I want us to be able to grow our ability to have healthy relationships and to change behaviour that isn't okay.
PG
Description
People who are part of the Rainbow community are more than twice as likely to experience partner violence than their straight counterparts.Sandra shares her own story and explores the unique challenges faced by her community.
Up Next
Series 2
Episode 5
Debbs Murray
On average, nine women are killed by their partner or ex-partner in New Zealand every year.
Almost a victim herself, Debbs shares her story to help illustrate 'coercive control' - a pattern of behaviour designed to exploit, dominate, and imprison women within a relationship.
Almost a victim herself, Debbs shares her story to help illustrate 'coercive control' - a pattern of behaviour designed to exploit, dominate, and imprison women within a relationship.
Details & Info
PG
Parental Guidance Recommended for Younger Viewers.