The Orange Door is a free service for all adults, children and young people who are experiencing or have experienced family violence. The Orange Door work with people who use violence as well as people experiencing violence. 

The Orange Door provides:

• A crisis response, including practical assistance, within business hours 
• Immediate referrals to specialist services such as legal advice, accommodation, medical treatment and care, and coordination with protective services (such as Victoria Police) to provide flexible responses tailored to individual needs.

You can request The Orange Door refer you to With Respect. Secondary consults are available to The Orange Door from With Respect.

WeDeserve is a WithRespect primary prevention project seeking to build the knowledge around trans and gender diverse people and their relationships. WeDeserve used a co-production model to elevate the voices of trans and gender diverse communities throughout the project.

What is family violence?

You may have heard of ‘gaslighting’, a term used to describe a form of emotional and psychological manipulation and abuse.

Gaslighting can cause someone to question their own perception of events, their memory, their thoughts, and doubt their sanity.

Whether you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender diverse, queer, non-binary, or are someone with a variation in sex characteristics, we often make daily decisions to come out or to friends, chosen family, colleagues, school staff, service providers, our parents or family members. We often make decisions where we are faced with feeling unsafe, feeling uncomfortable.

In any relationship it is important to feel not only physically safe, but emotionally safe as well. Positive relationships value a person’s unique attributes and allow space for all parties to speak their mind and share decision making.

Often it can be difficult to recognise or articulate your experience as family or intimate partner violence. This may be due to ongoing control, manipulation or gaslighting as well as minimisation from family, friends, or the person using violence.

People may experience intimate partner violence from a current partner, partners or ex-partners. Family Violence can be used by someone from family of origin, chosen family, or someone in a caring role.

Whether you are a sole prospective parent, partners or co-parents, or other family members like a known donor or surrogate, everyone involved needs to understand what decisions might need to be made, the information that might support the decision making process and think about how to approach decision making in a respectful way.

Many older and ageing LGBTIQ+ people enjoy respectful and safe relationships regardless of their age, family circumstances or care needs. Warm, loving and intimate relationships continue throughout our lifetimes, yet sometimes older people are targets of violence due to ageism, homophobia, and gender based violence.

Within our LGBTIQ+ communities, many of us are multi-gender attracted. Like everyone, bisexual plus and multi-gender attracted people want to feel safe, welcome, and respected within all their relationships, including with partners or families, at work or at school. Being able to express who we are without fear of discrimination or hostility is important, especially within relationships.