Freedom From Fear Campaign: Mortal Kombat

"I'm Gay, I'm being ABUSED, I have rights. Just like you. Don't I?"

LGBT couples are no different than same-sex couples when it comes to signs and characteristics of domestic violence! If you are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Pan-Sexual, YOU HAVE RIGHTS! YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!! These hotlines are open for ALL peoples in ANY situation!

Fact: 1 out 4 Same-Sex Couples will experience domestic violence. (1 out of 3 in heterosexual couples).

Fact 2: A LGBT person is less likely to report abuse due to fear of being "outted", lack of public understanding and many other factors that a heterosexual person DOES NOT experience.

VIEW PHOTO AD ON OUR BLOG: www.iotasigmarho.blogspot.com or www.facebook.com/IotaSigmaRhoSecondlifeSorority

Featured in this ad: Uqqn Zelin Owens & Cherokee Bellic (ISR)

Research: www.thehotline.org (National), http://tncoalition.org/(Tennessee), http://www.opdv.ny.gov/(New York)
Call 1-800-799-72339 (SAFE) |1-800-787-3224 (TTTY)
ADVOCATE!

Find out more about both orgs at:
www.iotasigmarho.wix.com/rush
www.opssl.org 

Comparing Domestic Violence of Same-Sex Couples and Straight:

• Straight and same-sex domestic violence share many common characteristics:
• The pattern of abuse includes a vicious cycle of physical, emotional, and psychological mistreatment, leaving the victim with feelings of isolation, fear, and guilt.
• Abusers often have severe mental illnesses and were themselves abused as children.
• Psychological abuse is the most common form of abuse and physical batterers often blackmail their partners into silence.
• Physical and sexual abuses often co-occur.
• No race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status is exempt.

Distinctive Straights:

• Gay or lesbian batterers will threaten “outing” their victims to work colleagues, family, and friends. This threat is amplified by the sense of extreme isolation among gay and lesbian victims since some are still closeted from friends and family, have fewer civil rights protections, and lack access to the legal system.
• Lesbian and gay victims are more reluctant to report abuse to legal authorities. Survivors may not contact law enforcement agencies because doing so would force them to reveal their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Gay and lesbian victims are also reluctant to seek help out of fear of showing a lack of solidarity among the gay and lesbian community. Similarly, many gay men and women hide their abuse out of a heightened fear that society will perceive same-sex relation- ships as inherently dysfunctional.

The Problem:

• Authorities often lack the knowledge of how to handle domestic violence cases involving people of the same gender. An officer may mistake two males living together for roommates, for example. And officers may fail to report an incident of domestic violence since the two parties involved may be unwilling to divulge their relationship status. In some cases the victim will be detained instead of the aggressor because the latter was physically smaller.

Source: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2011/06/14/9850/domestic-violence-in-the-lgbt-community/