Sandra Dickson: Domestic violence in Rainbow Communities

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk z EDB.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
This is the Nutters Club, thanks to New Zealand air
on News talk Edblad.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Good evening and welcome to the Nutters Club, the show
that talks about our mental health every Sunday night. My
name is mc andrew's. I'm filling in for Hamish Williams
tonight and if you're new to the Nutters Club, we
like to talk about the real stuff of life, including
the times where things get a bit tough, because no
matter who you are, life gets a little bit wobbly

(01:02):
sometimes and we don't talk about those times quite enough.
So that's what we do on the Nutters Club. We
talk about them. Tonight, we have an amazing guess who
we've managed to lure up to our Auckland studio from
her home near wang Anui, and she'll be talking to
us about a really important and compelling topic. But before

(01:23):
we get to that, it's my pleasure to welcome back
to his rightful place in the studio, everyone's favorite psychotherapist,
Carle McDonald. Welcome back, Curder. You're looking you're looking rested, oh,
I feel very well rested. Is there a reason for that?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, well, I've always been a big advocate of taking
time off her on your birthday. Possibly conveniently because my
birthday's right in the middle of the year. It's actually
next week. But yeah, I took a little bit of
time to spend some time in the sun. So I
probably should have said urana indeed, But yeah, I had
a great break and it's good to be back, good

(01:58):
to be back with you.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Is it irrelevant significant birthday? It ends with the zero.
It ends with the zero. We'll let the listeners decide which.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Half century not out. Stop carrying my bet.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeahle need to go clean, need to go. Tonight's guest
is Sandra Dixon, and we're talking about family violence and
partner violence in rainbow communities. And I was surprised to
read this week that people in rainbow communities experienced disproportionately
high rates of violence. We're talking about one and two

(02:32):
experience family and partner violence and abuse in their lifetime.
Sandra is a bisexual woman. She came out just a
couple of years ago in nineteen eighty eight, just after
sexual law reform, and she has also been the victim
of an abusive partner herself. She is the founder of
an organization called Ho Ho ted Or Kahukura, who are

(02:53):
dedicated to building violence free Takatarpui and rainbow communities here
in Old ted Or. Sandra, thanks so much for coming
on the show.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Oh, thank you. It's nice to be here.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
It's great to see you again too. We've met once
before and it was lovely picking you up from the
hotel this evening, and thanks for making such a long
journey to be here tonight. Now, before we dive into
this topic, we'd love to just get to know you
a little bit better first, and starting with your childhood.
Where were you brought up and what were those early
years like for you.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Yeah, well, I grew up in the Hut Valley, the
child of a Bogan father who grew up in christ
Church and a Canadian mother. Spent my years up until
age eight in Wyiu el Mata, which was a fantastic
place to be a little kid. You could just plan
the bush run around. We were in and out of

(03:45):
everyone's houses. And then we moved into the big smoke
of Lower Hut when I was eight year and grew
up there playing lots of sport, doing all the things
you do when you're a little kid in the Hut valley,
really hanging out with your friends on a Thursday night. Yeah,
it was a nice place to grow up when we

(04:07):
were younger. I think once we got to being teens,
it was a bit boring and we wanted to move
on and get into the big city kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, how did you make it a bit more exciting?
Keep it, keep it. It's not really a family show. Actually,
i'd take that back.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I got my driver's license when I was fifteen and
promptly got a Vauxhall Viva that I pretty much moved
around a lot in. Yeah, played loads of sport, and
I think the big smart Wellington was pretty bloody, pretty
pretty exciting almost straight away. Yeah, so we were pretty

(04:44):
keen to head into town and do all the things
that teenagers were doing in Wellington at that time.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
And tell me about your process of discovering your sexuality
and how it might have differed to some of the
people around you.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I can
remember homosexual law reform being debated. I didn't know myself
then that I was square, but I can remember how
ugly some of the conversations were. At the time, I
can remember arguing with my father about it, which is

(05:16):
quite interesting given what he was Late later on, I
remember asking him what he would do if a gay
couple moved in next door, if two men moved in
next door, and would he be okay with seeing them
kiss each other goodbye in the morning, the same way
he kissed my mother goodbye every day. And he was like, no,
that wouldn't be okay, And I was like, Dad, what

(05:39):
you know. I think it was the first time I
realized my father didn't know everything actually, and he said, well,
we wouldn't move Sandra, and I was like, oh, yikes,
you know, but that wasn't about me, you know. That
conversation was just about people really. And then I think
when I went to university, so I was eighteen, quite

(06:02):
a baby really, and I met I'd started doing lots
of kind of feminist stuff, political stuff, met lots of
people that were different from me, and I started thinking
about relationships and realizing that the women that I knew
that were in relationships with each other there was no
different from how I'd felt about the boys I was dating.

(06:23):
And I was kind of like, Oh, so if the
thing that I'm attracted to in a person is how
kind they are and how smart they are and how
funny they are, and if none of that has anything
to do with gender, then I'm probably going to have
relationships with people no matter what their gender is. So
it was sort of theoretical for me first. Yeah, And

(06:43):
when I realized that, I told people around me, told
my friends, told my family. But it was probably a
couple of years after that that I actually had a
relationship with a woman. So it was a process.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
And what about your journey of coming out? Yeah, what
was that like? Oh?

Speaker 4 (07:03):
Terrifying really, So it was nineteen eighty eight, two years
post homosexual law reform. It was a pretty unsafe place.
It was pretty unsafe and old actually to be queer then,
and particularly unsafe I think in the Hut Valley. I
told my best friend first, and she was fabulous, as
you'd expect. When I told my family, I didn't know

(07:27):
this at the time, but they didn't really believe me.
They thought they told me later they thought I was
trying to be trendy. Yeah. Yeah, And so when I
had a relation, my first relationship with a woman, and
told them about that. That was really when I guess that.
I guess their values became more obvious, and I think

(07:50):
for my mother I told her first, she was just
terrified about how my father was going to behave, I think,
and also really confusingly, I told her about the woman
that I was seeing, and she she said, oh, yes,
women have very intense relationships with each other. I had
relationships like that with the nuns. And I was like,

(08:13):
did you, mum, tell me more about that. And we
sort of talked for about half an hour, with her
saying back to me over and over again that's how
I felt about the nuns, and me saying I'm not
sure that's right, Mum. And then finally I said, Mum,
this is the kind of relationship I have and gave
her a bit more detail, and she was like, I know,
you're right, that's not how I feel about the nuns.

(08:35):
I thought my mother was coming out to me a
pro yeah, But because because my mother was worried about
my dad's reaction, she told him. And I came home
to find he'd already been told, and he was quite devastated,
quite broken. Didn't want me to be queer, didn't told

(08:57):
me there were no such thing as gay people tell me,
didn't know any gay people. Told me then that she
of me being bisexual was the problem. It would be
easier for him if I was a lesbian. Yeah. Well,
and I said, Dad, it wouldn't be as for me,
like I'm telling you who I am. Yeah, and he
he asked me to leave, really and that was awful.

(09:21):
It was devastating. Yeah. So I left home with not
really you know, I was a kid. I didn't have
any resources. I didn't really have anywhere to go. Yeah,
And I think over time those relationships have changed. I
think my mother completely got over it, actually, but I

(09:42):
don't know for my dad that he has now even,
you know. And that's I'm fifty five, So that's what's
that thirty seven years ago?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Well, we are talking with Sandra Dixon. She is
a bisexual woman who is talking about coming out in
nineteen eighty eight and the impact that had on the
people around her and not so favorable reaction of her father.
And she now works in the area of viol In,
Rainbow and Takatapua communities here in Old Too, and we

(10:11):
will be hearing more of her story in a couple
of minutes after this break on the Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on newstalg.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Z'b Welcome back to the Nutters Club. Tonight we are
talking with Sandra Dixon, who founded an organization called Joho
tedor or Kahukuta working towards violence free Takatapu and rainbow
communities here in Old Tutor and she was just telling
us about her growing up and starting her first relationship

(10:39):
with a woman and the response of her family and
getting kicked out of home as a result. And how
old were you then, Sandra.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
I came out for the first time when I was eighteen,
and I got kicked out in my early twenties.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Okay, And so you get kicked out and then where
do you go from there? What where do you build
your life after that?

Speaker 4 (11:02):
I moved in with the person I was in the
relationship with, the woman I was in the relationship with. Yeah,
and that I mean it was very early in the relationships.
It was a ton of pressure really on that. But
all of my friends were like me, you know, none
of us had any any resources to be able to
help each other with that kind of stuff. So I

(11:23):
lived with her for a little while and then moved
out quite quickly because it didn't really want to be
living with a partner at that point where I'm in Wellington. Yeah,
and it's a pretty yeah. So late eighties, early nineties
it's a pretty kind of lively time in terms of
queer stuff because there's all the reaction to the homosexual

(11:46):
law reform going on, and we would get we would
get attacked in the streets sometimes. One of the times
I remember walking home in Newtown a group of kids,
like teenagers started following me down the street with a
sack of potatoes. They were they were going shopping, I think,
and they'd seen me walking with my girlfriend earlier and

(12:09):
they started throwing these potatoes at me. And I'm a
cricket player, so that was pretty dumb. I could throw
the potatoes further and harder than they could, so that
didn't last very long. But it wasn't you know, it
didn't make you feel that great. Really, you're kind of
I think you had half an eye open all the
time for kind of potential risk. Yeah, and I guess

(12:35):
the like finding work and stuff as well. It was
it was a time when you kind of wondered about
whether or not your sexuality was going to be a
problem really, and sometimes it was I didn't get some
jobs because I was queer, and I didn't get some
housing because I was queer, and so that kind of stuff. Yeah,

(12:56):
it was. It was an intense time, I think, And
in the flip side of that was there was this
amazing community building stuff going on. You know, we were
really active in terms of organizing, in terms of setting
upmmunity groups instead of events, and all of the stuff
was wonderful to be part of and really joyous.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And obviously tonight the focus is about family and partner
violence within Rainbow communities. I know that you have been
a victim of partner violence yourself. Would you be okay
telling us about how that unfolded for you?

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, well, we've kind of started talking about it in
a way because that relationship that I that I moved
in with when when I was kicked out of home
was later became abusive and it started in quite small ways.
Is these things often do with sort of jealousy and

(13:56):
kind of questions about what I was doing and where
I was going and who I was spending time with,
and attempts to kind of put restrictions on what I
was doing, lots of there was lots of challenging of
my identity because at that time in the lesbian community
there was a lot of biophobia. Bisexual woman were pre lesbian,

(14:18):
Theeds to say, and so there was a lot of
kind of why that you come out properly kind of stuff.
And then I think as time went on, the jealousy
and the controlling stuff got more and more intense and
happened more and more often. So she would turn up

(14:38):
at my work every day to I don't know what
she was doing, to check I was there. I was
always there every day, every day. Yeah, and she was
sort of framing it as, you know, this is because
I love you so much, I can't be to be
part of from you. I need to see you. But
actually that sort of ended up being pretty much part
of every part of my life. She would turn up

(15:00):
at my sports matches, she would turn up, if I
was going out for a drink with another friend, she
would turn up at some point.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, and so what was she checking up on you for? Yet?

Speaker 4 (15:14):
I think she would tell me that it was just
about wanting to see me and spend time with me.
The narrative was that I might hook up with one
of my friends, and I realized that after we broke up,
that she'd accused me of wanting to be in a
relationship with every single one of my friends, which would
be quite exhausting. I think she was, yeah, And then

(15:40):
I guess the other thing that started to happen was
that my friends stopped wanting to spend time with us
because she would make it really unpleasant. She would be
rude to them or all over me to make it
uncomfortable for them. And so I guess the upshot of
all of that was just real increasing isolation for me,

(16:01):
increasing kind of dependency really on her. And there was
already a bit of that because my family went supportive
of who I was, So I was already in a
more kind of likely to be vulnerable position, I guess.
And then the physical violence started, but there was a

(16:21):
long time afterwards, like the emotional stuff had been going
on for quite a long time before the physical stuff started.
The first physical things she did is she punched a
hole in the wall of my flat because she was
unhappy that I'd gone out with one of my friends.
The next thing she punched me, she started breaking gifts
that people gave me, you know, friends had given me

(16:42):
or whatever. And I think again, over time that was
happening more often, and it was more serious too. Some
of the more serious physical incidents were choking and yeah,
kind of throwing me onto kind of fences and things

(17:04):
like that. So yeah, it became really quite physically violent
over time.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
It was it almost like that kind of psychological and
emotional abuse set the foundation for the physical sence.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, hundred percent. Yeah, it was exactly like that. I
think if the first thing that had been a bit
off and our relationship had been her punching me, then
there's absolutely no way that I would have thought that
that was okay. And I didn't think it was okay
when she did punch me. But by the time that happened,
she had done an awful lot to wear down my

(17:41):
sense of self and my entitlement to be treated with
respect in our relationship. And so I remember the first
time she hit me, I walked out and walked off
and went and spent some time by myself. But I
didn't tell anyone, and I didn't so I wasn't processing
what was going on with anybody in my life. I

(18:02):
was only processing it with her, and her stories were, oh,
that won't happen again. And I grew up in a
really violent family, which was true. She had grown up
in a very violent family. You know this is because
I'm upset. She did a lot of kind of blaming
how she behaved on me and blaming how she behaved
on her experiences of trauma and pain, and those two

(18:27):
things together, the first one made me feel like everything
was my fault, and the second one made me feel
like I should be trying to help her. This is
someone I love and she's hurting, and yeah, so it
was a complete and utter. Yeah, it was a complete utter.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I know the word you want to say, ends and show. Yeah,
thank you for sharing that with us. And I'm curious
to ask you about you mentioned before about what it
does to your sense of self and I want to
ask you about that. We do have to go to
a break first, and I'll be back with that question
in a couple of minutes. Here on the Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
This is the Nutters Club, thanks to New Zealand on
the news dog z'.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Be Welcome back to the Nutter's Club. We are talking
with Sandra Dixon and she works very hard towards having
violence free Takatapu and Rainbow communities here in Altor, and
she was just generously talking to us about a very
hard period of her life where she was in an
abusive relationship, started with emotional and psychological abuse and then

(19:31):
transitioned into physical abuse. And as I said before the break, Sandra,
I wanted to ask you, what does being in a
relationship like that due to your sense of self.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
I think what happened for me was that I started
to really doubt my understanding of what was happening. And
people call that gas lighting. Now, what it was like
for me was it's almost that you can't. You can't,
you don't have a solid grasp on anything really that's

(20:06):
going on. Because one of the things my ex partner
would do is challenge absolutely everything, challenged absolutely everything I said.
I think I I was having huge problems sleeping. One
of the things she would do is wake me up
in the middle of the night, deliberately turn on all
the lights in the house, made lots of noise. I

(20:30):
don't know about you, but a little sleep makes me crazy.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Really, why was she doing that?

Speaker 4 (20:36):
I don't know, honestly, don't know, yeah, it was. It
was a I think it was something she did to
keep me unsteady almost. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Awful though I premeditated.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, one hundred per Yeah, it was very, very odd. Yeah,
And it didn't happen lots, but probably ten times maybe
in our relationship. I had so much shame because I
wasn't telling anyone what was happening, and I believed her
when she told me it was my over time. I

(21:11):
think one of the things that happens in abuse of relationships,
when especially when people are isolated, is that the only
person you've got to try and make sense of your
relationship with is a person who's harming you, and they've
got an interest in the story of the relationship excusing
their behavior. And that was definitely one of the things
that was happening for me is feeling like I really

(21:36):
wanted to help this person. I loved her, but I couldn't.
Nothing that I was doing was seeming to make any
difference at all. So I was feeling awful about that,
and I was feeling awful about the things she was
doing and saying to me that I wasn't talking about
with anyone else.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, I can imagine it must kind of warp your
sense of reality, like, oh, maybe this is normal, Maybe
the things she's telling me are true.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
You know, it definitely did. And also the last time
she physically assaulted me, she was mad at me because
we'd gone to a party. There was a leaving party
for us. We were going to move to Australia, and
she was mad at me because our friends had given
me a present and she said, so many people love

(22:29):
you and threw me onto a picket fence. And so
I'm getting this kind of message from the person who's
supposed to love me more than anyone else, that it's
wrong for people around me to care about me. Yeah,
that's quite extraordinary thing to be given the message that
you receiving love is a bad thing, there's something wrong

(22:51):
with it. Yeah. And I remember after I left the relationship,
like a couple of days later, I looked in the
mirror at myself, and I didn't have any clothes on,
and I had all these bruises all over my body
from that attack because of get fenced with sharp so
I'd all these bruises and cats And I can just

(23:12):
remember looking at my body and thinking, how on earth
is that what my relationship turned into how you know,
how did that happen? And not having the answers at
that point at all, like really not. But I think
starting to ask those questions was the point where it
started to turn for me.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
I feel like people who haven't experienced abuse in a relationship,
some of them might ask, well, if someone's treating you
that badly, why don't you just leave? You know, you
hear people ask that question.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
Everybody asked that question, don't they. That's the thing we
hear all the time. And yeah, And you know, my
sister said to me years after that relationship, when I
finally told her what had happened, she said, you would
never have put up with that from a man. Why
did you put up with it from a woman? And
I think the ways we blame people experiencing violence for

(24:05):
what's being done to them are quite extraordinary. We get
to extraordinary links to to minimize I think the impact
violence has on us. And I think for me, as
I said earlier, it was the slow creep of the
controlling behaviors over time that by the time she was

(24:25):
doing things that were that most people would have looked
at and gone, oh, that's awful. I didn't have an
intact sense of self anymore. I really didn't.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah, I almost imagine that you must have just had
to just become smaller and smaller and smaller as a
person to make room for her and her needs and
all the things she was doing, to the point where
you almost don't have the agency that you would usually
have in life.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yeah. I think that's a really good way of putting it.
I think when you when your world gets smaller, when
your sense of the choices you have available to you,
And I think in my case too, like late eighties,
early nineties, the rest of the world's really queer fobic.
My family have kicked me out. Who am I going
to talk to about it?

Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know?

Speaker 4 (25:15):
If I talk about violence in a relationship with a
woman when the world already thinks our relationships are all
for and ugly and wrong and a moral and da
da da da da da da. So there's this sort
of thing about you. Don't You don't want to tell
those stories because you don't want people to think the
Rainbow community is any worse than it is. And in

(25:36):
terms of kind of practical things that could have been
helpful practically, women's refuges weren't set up for women like
me in that in that situation, my friends were about
as rich or poor as I was. You know, there
weren't actually very many options in terms of getting the
kind of support and help, let alone being able to

(25:58):
talk it through with someone.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, we are talking tonight was Sandra Dixon who is
telling us about her journey in and abuse relationship with
a woman. And she's started telling us about the time
that she realized she did need to get out, and
we'll start talking about how exactly she went about that
after the break on the Nutterers Club.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand on
News Dog ZB.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Welcome back to the Nudders Club. Tonight, we're talking with
Sandra Dixon about violence in Takatapu and Rainbow communities here
in Al tur Or. And she's been telling us about
a relationship she had that turned violent and just before
the break, she told us about a particularly violent episode
which led to her questioning whether this was the kind

(26:48):
of relationship she wanted to be in. Yeah, how did
you start to make your way or even find the
strength to consider making your way out of that relationship?
Sandra mm.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
As it often is with these things. It was other
people around me, So I said that we had been
about to leave to go away together. She didn't turn up.
When we were supposed to go to the airport. She disappeared,
and the friend who'd come to pick me up picked

(27:21):
us both up to take us to the airport arrived
and was like, Oh, where's she? And I said I
don't know, and my friend was absolutely horrified and kind
of like, what do you mean? As she just disappeared.
So she'd taken our money and she got off, and

(27:42):
I think she was expecting me to stay, to change
all our plans, and I'd left my job and we'd
given up our flat, and I just had this moment
of God, if I can't, if I can't say no
to this, I'm never going to say no to anything.
If she's able to make every single decision in our lives,

(28:05):
then what is there really? And my friend was making
it very clear that she was very unimpressed with this,
and she said to me, what do you want to do?
And that question was the beginning of change for me,
because I actually thought what do I want to do?
And I thought about what do I want to do

(28:26):
without the influence of being told what it is I'm going.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
To do, almost like she's saying, you're a valuable individual
who deserves to have what you want.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, one hundred percent and yeah. So she took me
to the airport and I continued on with the plans
we'd made and did that myself, and then I think
it actually helped being away from her, like not being
in the same place, it gave me a bit of
space and time to think. I still wasn't talking to
anyone about what had happened. That took a lot longer,

(28:58):
but having time and space away, starting to be around
people that were just treating me kindly, like you know,
actually not being treated badly was it gave me space.
It gave me a bit more room, I think to
think about what was important and to start kind of
looking back over that relationship and going, yikes, what the
hell happened there? You know, when I started trying to

(29:22):
talk about what had happened though with other people, and
I think that's really important. I think, you know, if
there's someone listening to this who's thinking about their situation,
talk to other people about it to get other people's
kind of insight into what's happening. Don't just listen to
someone who was treating you badly about your relationship. When

(29:43):
I started talking to other people about it, it was
really hard to find the words. Like the domestic violence
was not really talked about very much then at all,
but domestic violets and relationships between women. You know, women
are violent, women are cuddly and sweet and nice and good.
So it was really hard to start finding the words.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
And I.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
Ended up going to work and woman's refuges and working
with woman after woman after woman who was leaving violent
men almost always, and listening to their stories of what
was going on for them and kind of going, gosh,
that's that's really similar to what was happening in my relationship. Wow,

(30:27):
that that thing, that's something my ex used to do too,
and kind of trying to make sense of that and
trying to name it really as domestic violence. That took
me a long time, probably ten years, I.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Reckon, Wow, So you weren't really even calling it that
for a long time, And it wasn't until you look
back at and go, hold on, that's what I experienced.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
Yeah, Yeah, I think I knew the relationship was awful,
and I knew there were things that were happening in
it that were all four and I knew that they
were things she was doing. And I also knew she
did that with subsequent partners too, So I definitely had
a sense of this woman's behavior is not okay. But

(31:07):
to it she shift to calling it domestic violence took
it took me a long time.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, and what damage your wounds did it leave you
with that you then had to heal from?

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Hm?

Speaker 4 (31:21):
I think this, I don't. Yeah, I'm not sure that
they're entirely healed now, you know. And I don't mean that.
I don't mean that I'm kind of living with fear
or anything like that, But I mean that, when you've
been treated that badly in a relationship, developing what you

(31:41):
want and what you think is respectful behavior and what
you are entitled to in a relationship, I think it
takes quite a long time. And it probably takes being
in relationships with good people actually and being able to
talk about previous experiences. And I was really fortunate that
the next relationship I had a couple of years later

(32:01):
was with someone who was very, very different to that,
and yeah, treated me with a lot, Yeah, me with
care and love and all the ways that you should
be treated in an intimate relationship.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah, I'm curious to ask you, Kyle. You will, have,
no doubt, worked with many of people who have experienced
abuse and relationships on a psychological level. What effect and
impact does it have on people to be in controlling
abusive relationships?

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Well, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that
it's a kind of brainwashing. Actually, I mean you talked
about gas lighting, Sandra, which is one of those terms
now that's very modern and kind of almost lost its
meaning because it's become so sort of fashionable. But what
we mean by that is actually when another person comes
to define our reality. And you know, if we think

(32:48):
about it, in relationships and intimate relationships, we are particularly
naturally open and are open to influence by the person
that we're close to and have led into our world.
So when somebody who is abusive, and if we define
there a little more closely as someone who's prone to

(33:09):
controlling another person to deal with the emotional problems they
have inside themselves, because that's kind of the fundamental of
an abusive relationship, right, I want you to behave in
certain ways so that I don't have to feel certain things,
jealousy being the most obvious example of that. Then over time,
what we can learn is that actually it's our responsibility
to behave in certain ways so that they feel better

(33:31):
or don't feel angry or don't get upset, and at
that point we've lost ourselves, lost our own sort of
internal sense of direction or agency or whatever we might
call that. The other thing is, like you quite rightly said,
is you know why don't you leave?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well?

Speaker 3 (33:49):
I often think the ads to that is often best
understood is just a really pragmatic ancer. Like, leaving a
relationship's really hard, you know, especially you live together, your
finances are you know, entwined, you have the same friends,
particularly if nobody knows about the violence in the relationship.
Leaving any relationship, even a relationship, is really really difficult

(34:10):
and involve lots of work, and often we have to
do it multiple times as well. We might move out,
but then we have to stop contact or change friends,
or it's a.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Lot of work.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
And what we also really recognize in violent relationships is
that there's a pattern to them. So frequently, after some
kind of big explosion, whether that be physical or emotional
violence or some kind of disruption, things get better for
a little while, and you know, it's really natural for

(34:43):
us to think, oh, maybe things are okay, and so
that cycle often keeps people trapped for a long period
of time before they really start to put those dots together.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, it's easy from the outside looking in to just
see the violence and think why would you put up
with that? But you're also not seeing that sometimes there's
still good times and there's aspects of that person absolutely
that you like and you love them. And yeah, yeah,
we do have to take a break now, but we'll
be back talking more with Sandra Dixon tonight. We're talking

(35:14):
about violence within the Tucker type and rainbow communities here
in Altera, or we'll be back in a couple of
minutes here on Another's club.

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thanks to New Zealand air on NEWSTALKSB.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Welcome back to the Nutters Club. Tonight we're talking with
Sandra Dixon and she's been telling us her story about
coming out in the late eighties and having a relationship
with a woman that turned sour and turned violent. And
I'm curious to know what do you the listener have
to bring to this conversation. Have you had an experience

(37:47):
with a violent relationship? What was that like for you?
We'd like to hear your story, or maybe it was
a loved one and what was it like supporting a
loved one through that. Give us a call on our
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty or text nine two
nine two. We'd love to talk Sandra. Obviously, family and
partner violence is traumatic for anyone who experiences it. But

(38:10):
I'm wondering what specific challenges do members of rainbow communities
face when they're the victims of partner violence.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
I think this is a huge question. Partly, we have
already so many stories about who we are and what
our relationships like that are disrespectful and unhealthy and unkind.
As I was saying earlier, it can be really difficult

(38:42):
to talk about things in our relationships when they're not okay.
And also who do we talk to? You know, we
only really talk to one another about that if we
talk to anyone. We're not going to talk to a
colleague at work, you know, we have to we have
to come out to talk about that. So that's quite
a barrier as well. The services that exist in are
largely for men's violence towards women, so they're not necessarily

(39:06):
going to be safe places for us to go and
ask for help. And I think that because because there
are these ideas about takatap were Rainbow folks that are,
you know that we're we're not as good as other people.
We're not normal, We're not this that and the other
that can make it. It can make it really when

(39:34):
we tell stories about our relationships being not okay, being abusive,
it can just be really reinforcing of some of the
things around us already. So there's sort of community pressure
not to talk about them too. I think we kind
of we're used to talking about discrimination and abuse towards
us from the outside, but it can be really difficult

(39:56):
to talk about it from within our community, I think.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
So when you reference community pressure, you mean pressure from
natural rainbow community.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
Yeah, I do. I think it's I think any community
they're experien any kind of judgment from outside, it's more
difficult to talk about ugly things inside the community. And
the other thing is, you know, I break up with
someone who's been abusive to me, Well, I'm going to
see them again and again and again. You know, we

(40:24):
can't really escape those things because our communities are small
and we all know each other. So one of the
things that's really common for us is that when relationships
break up, if there has been abuse, often the community
doesn't know who to believe about what's happened, and so
you'll get side taking and you can imagine who's better

(40:46):
at encouraging people to take sides the person who's really
good at using abuse or the person who's been experiencing it.
So we see quite a lot of kind of what
I would call shunning, kind of encouraging people in our
communities to isolate someone who's actually been a victim of abuse.

(41:07):
We see that quite a lot, and.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Is there Obviously the rainbow community is not it's not
our community, it's communities. There's lots of different kind of
sections for want of a better word. Do different sections
of the rainbow community experience abuse in different ways or
are they susceptible to different types of abuse, you know,
whether it be the lesbian, gay, by trans.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah, I think I think there's some similarities, you know.
I think physical violence is a punch, as a punch
is a punch. I think the way psychological abuse gets
used and emotional abuse gets used, those things are always
shaped for the person that you're using them on. So

(41:53):
for men, the idea that a man is a victim
is still not something we really accept. So for men
to be able to talk about being victims is really hard.
For women to be able to talk about experiencing violence
from all woman is really hard. Trans people are being
dumped on by everyone in the world at the moment,
so being able to talk about things that are happening

(42:17):
for them is tricky. You know, if you think about
people living with HIV, for example, HIV stigma is still
a very real thing. Outing is still a technic that
gets used by people that are behaving abusively in relationships.
If you're someone who isn't out in parts of your life,
that's a really terrifying thing. You know, the idea that

(42:38):
someone might out you at work, or might out you
in your family, or might out you at church.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Is it the threat of outing you that the abuser
will use.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell everyone that you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. Yeah.
So I think that the the tactics gets shaped for
the person they're aimed at. There might you know, they're
they're effective because of the world that that person lives in.
Their effective because are the things that that person struggles

(43:09):
with already.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Hmm right, I'm curious. This is a bit of a
bit of a different tangent in a way. But you know,
you talked about coming out in the late eighties. You
talked about your family's response, and I wonder if there's
people out there who don't have a lot of connection
with Rambourg communities but have a family member who has

(43:32):
come out well, and they don't necessarily know how to
manage that or what to do. What advice would you
give them.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
I'd tell them to remember that all the things they
loved about that person is still there. That even though
they might not understand what that identity is yet, they've
still they've still got a relationship with a person that
has that identity. So I just encourage them to just
be there, really, to stay in relationship, to stay curious

(44:03):
about who the person is. I think a lot of
the time people get worried about the things they're scared
will happen to, say, a child comes out, or or
so your father comes out, you know, and you had
no idea before that. I think the things that we
get afraid of in those situations, they are our fears

(44:25):
that they don't really belong to the person that they're about.
Almost so to a certain extent, it's about managing whatever
fears you've got somewhere else and staying present and staying
kind and staying connected to your family member.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
That's great advice. Well, Tonight we're talking with Sandra Dixon
about violence and partner violence, family violence within the Rainbow community,
and I'm curious to know what window do you have
into this topic. Maybe you've been the victim of violence,
maybe you're in a Rainbow community and maybe you're not well.

(45:01):
Maybe you've got a question for Sandra or a word
of encouragement. If so, give us a call on eight
hundred and eighty ten eighty. Will be back after news,
sport and weather here on the Nudders.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
Club, which.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
This is the Nutters Club thanks to New Zealand Air
on News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Welcome back to the Nudders Club, and tonight we're talking
all about family violence and partner violence, particularly in the
Rainbow and Takatarpui community here in Alteraora. And our guest
is Sandra Dixon, who is the founder of an organization
called hoh tedor Kahukuda, who worked hard towards a violence
free Rainbow community here in New Zealand. And we have

(45:50):
been talking to her about her early life. She came
out in nineteen eighty eight, just after sexual law reform.
She had a fairly positive response from her mum, not
such a positive one from her dad. She was kicked
out of home, moved to Wellington, connected with the Rainberg
community in Wellington, found community there, but also found herself

(46:13):
in a relationship that started with emotional and psychological control
and abuse and continued on to be very physically abusive.
And she's telling us about just how much that damaged
her own sense of self and how diminished she felt,
how it robbed her of her agency. She did thankfully

(46:37):
make her way out of that relationship and start to
rebuild her life. Now I know, Sandra, that you go
on to work in this area and to advocate for
people in Ramberg communities who are experiencing partner violence. How
did that come about? How did you start moving towards

(46:58):
that work?

Speaker 4 (47:01):
Well, I started as a social worker and I worked
in women's refugees and rape crisis type is for a
very long time, and I really loved that work. I
really agree with the work those organizations too. But when
you're in any small community and you have a set

(47:21):
of knowledge, you become a resource for your community. So
because I was doing violence response work, I would get
people in TakaTak and Raban communities coming to me and
talking to me about experiences they'd had, you know, sexual
violence experiences, stuff that was happening in their relationship. They
went there happy with And I just get people coming

(47:43):
to me and asking me questions about it and wanting
to talk about it with me and ask and sometimes
asking me, oh, you know, could I report that to
the police or do you think a woman's refuge would
take me? And I did an awful lot for around
about twenty years to try and stretch the work I
was doing or the organizations I was working with to

(48:03):
be able to respond to the kinds of those kinds
of requests for help. Sometimes I could, and sometimes I couldn't.
Sometimes the kind of only offerings were going to individual
therapists or you know, not not to a service. And
I just decided ten years ago that I actually wanted
to do something that was just for us. I wanted
to do something that was going to be the right

(48:25):
shape for us, that was going to pay attention to
the things that actually happened to in our communities and
that people were going to know was safe for them,
you know, that they weren't going to have to worry about, Oh,
is that service going to treat me with respect? Is
that service going to recognize my relationship. Is that service
going to treat my gender properly? Yeah, And so that

(48:45):
kind of led to founding on Okahukuta. And the first
thing we did was travel around the country and hold
community who we and ask people in our relationships what
kinds of things they were worried about in their relationships,
and ask them what they knew about consent and what
they knew about the law, and I guess kind of

(49:07):
having raising awareness type conversations. And we went from Dunedin
de funga day we had who he with about eighty
people and who he with two people. We would talk
to whoever came, and from all of those conversations we
got a really clear sense of the kinds of things
that were going on around the country. We developed a
whole bunch of resources that were naming those things. We

(49:30):
also got a really big sense of how poorly the
existing services were working for us. Most of the time,
people in our communities didn't know whether or not the
local service would work. The men's services in particular, were
completely invisible to men in our communities. Yeah, and that

(49:51):
all felt really sad, you know, because people were talking
about violent experiences. But they knew that there was no
where they could go for help, and they also said
that they didn't want to go to the local Rainbow
community group that was about social stuff because maybe their
partner was involved, or maybe if they talked to there,
everyone in the small town was going to know. So

(50:11):
there were these big challenges for help seeking, I guess.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
And as you went up and down the country meeting
with all those people, were you confronted by how present
violence was in those communities or was it as you expected?
Or did you hear stories that were hard to hear.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
Definitely heard stories that were hard to hear. I think
because I'd been hearing stories for quite a long time.
I wasn't surprised. I was surprised how much people wanted
to talk about it actually, and really they were really
beautiful community Hulley. I mean really tough topics, but thirty

(50:52):
seven people coming to a hurry and Palmerston North to
talk about partner violence and Rabai communities. That's amazing. A
I was really struck by how broad the representation of
people in our communities was, so you know, all the identities,
all the ethnicity people coming to talk about this. I
was shocked about how little people knew about sexual violence

(51:15):
law in consent, how little people knew about protections the
law has. And I was probably pleasantly surprised at how
able people were to name abusive relationship, abuse of behaviors
and relationships. Yeah, it wasn't like everyone in a hui
would know all of that, but by the time you'd

(51:38):
listened to twenty people in a hui, you'd have a
very good range of descriptions of abusive behavior. So people
noticed different things, I guess, but collectively we were noticing everything.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
So after you did done all this kind of and
heard people's stories done on this research, what did you
decide was the best type of organization to start or
what did you decide was the best way to help
people who are experiencing this.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I think that after we'd gathered the information, and the
first thing that happened was we put it all together
and we gave it back to community, really so that
people could could see themselves in the work that we'd
gathered in the information, we produce lots of resources, We
did all kinds of things like that. We put out
a report that had a set of recommendations, all of

(52:27):
which are still relevant. To be honest, which is a
bit depressing. But what our communities had asked for was
resources to help families be safe places for young people
to come out in They really people saw that as
a really fundamental part of kind of being well in
violence free in the world. People wanted healthy relationships type

(52:50):
material that was relevant for us. People wanted services to
be trained in who we are and the kinds of
violence we experience. And people wanted to be able to
go to a service that was specifically for them as well.
So all of those things, I guess have been things
we've tried to action really over the last ten years,

(53:11):
to various degrees of success. And I'd say that that
need to have both specialist responses and ordinary bog standard
responses that are respectful. That is still absolutely something we
would advocate for.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Yeah, because I mean you sort of touched on it
when you talked about small communities. But one of the
challenges can be not everybody who identifies in a particular
way wants to go to a service that identifies in
that way, right, whether it's Maldi or whether it's Rainbow Community.
Often they want to step completely outside their own community.
For lots of very good reasons potentially.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I think. And the other bit
that I would say is that there is a difference
between a rainbow community group that's been set up to
be social and fun, which is what most of our
rainbow community groups are for, and responding to violence. And
that was one of the things people said repeatedly, and
we still survivors saying that that they don't want to
go to their wonderful rainbow community group that's there to

(54:14):
organize pride every year. They want to go somewhere where
information is going to be confidential, their partner's not going
to find out, it's not going to be spread all
over the community what's going on. Yeah, So I guess
for us that meant setting up heted or go coj
cuter in a very particular kind of way, with very
particular principles around being survivor led, around making sure that

(54:35):
we stand with survivors no matter what. Yeah, confidentiality in
privacy is huge for us because of those issues.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Tell me, Sandra, how do people access for hot or
co co cuta and what happens when they do?

Speaker 4 (54:51):
So it's a bit different in different parts of the country.
We have a national Sexual Violence Support Service, so about
fifty therapists around the country. For that. To access that,
you go on to our website, you contact us fire
there and we will talk to you about what kind
of support you want and how you want to receive that,

(55:12):
and then we will try and match you with someone
who will be able to do that. Our therapists are
mostly people that are tucka Tap and Rainbow themselves. We
have a really diverse, beautiful range of people in supporting
roles there in terms of family violence. You can get
in touch with us and talk to us, but we
only have a social work role in the white couple.

(55:33):
So that's that's a far no worker role. It's the
only role in the country unfortunately at the moment with
a focus on Taker, Tap and Rainbow communities. And so
through that role we take referrals from New Zealand place
and we also take people in our communities who just
come directly to us and that wonderful social worker will
connect people in with the services they need.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
So the access to counsel is nationwide, but they're kind
of more face to face social workers in the white
coutle only from COK Is that right?

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Yeah, The the sexual Violence Service has social workers as well,
but it's only for people who've experienced sexual violence. So
it's yeah, that's that's there's a there's a huge gap
in terms of family violence national support at the moment.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Well, we're talking with Sandra Dixon who has just been
talking about the organization she founded Hotel or Kahukuda to
build a violence free takatap in rainbow communities here in
Old ted Or. And I'm curious to know what story
do you have to tell the listener, What window do
you have into this area of family violence or partner violence,

(56:46):
whether you're in a rainbow community or not. Or maybe
you're in the rainbow community and you've just got a
story to tell about some of the difficulties or the
resistance that you've come up against, or maybe you've got
a question for either Sandra or Kyle. Give us a call.
We'd love to talk on one hundred eighty ten eighty
or text nine to nine two. We're going to go

(57:07):
to a break now and we'll back soon here on
the Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
news Dog ZB.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Welcome back to the Nudders Club. Our guest tonight is
Sandra Dickson, and we've been talking about family and partner
violence in rainbow communities here in New Zealand, and we're
going to go straight to the phones and we're going
to talk to Matthew. Matthew, Hello, Hi, how's it going good?

Speaker 7 (57:31):
How are you? Yeah? Yeah, I'm good. It has got
my brain thinking a little bit, Kyotras, your guests said
that has done an extremely wonderful job setting up a
community groups and all that back to my life a

(57:56):
little bit. Okay, I'm I'm single, I live alone, and
I'm forty two years old, and I am not a
community group myself. I'm a person. I'm an individual person

(58:17):
and throughout my forty two years of my life as
your oh minus that, because I became an adult at
twenty one years of age of life and a lot
of people in the community come to me. I'm like,
in a way, I'm like a magnet. And a lot

(58:39):
of people come to my home either through family occasionally,
but not so much through family, but through friends that
feel like they needed somebody to talk to. And I
was basically I was always there magnet. My friends would

(59:00):
come to me and I'll hug them, and I cannot
express to you how many friends have come to my
home that need a hug from me. Because I'm a
gay person myself. I'm a strong gay person. I'm a
strong emotional person. But all these dreams that have come

(59:22):
to my house, not always with their problems, but their
acceptance of them wanting to be gay or lesbian. My
house has been so opening and welcoming to gay people
that come into my home and I hug them and

(59:43):
I cry and we're together. And you know, in some circumstances,
gay people have problems with women because the relationship between
a gay man trying to open up to himself and
then being in a woman a relationship was not always

(01:00:03):
a healthy thing for a man to be in that relationship.
It was not a healthy think for that man to
be in a relationship. But let alone, and I would
just like some advice from you know, the call on
the radio tonight. You know, I don't own a community group,
and I've opened my home and I've been so accepting

(01:00:26):
to so many gay people throughout the short year years
of my life that I opened my home and I
welcome them with open armed I tell them I'm not
a Christian, I just accept you for what you are
and maybe the circumstances of these people that are growing

(01:00:48):
up on their homes because you know, they weren't accepted
for whatever idea. And I'd just like to get some
advice because I have so many people coming to my home.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
I think one of the first places of advice, if
I could just jump in, would be I hope that
with the support that you're giving people, that you're getting
support for yourself too, that you have someone or somewhere
you can go to talk about what ends up landing
on you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
And it sounds carry on.

Speaker 7 (01:01:27):
Oh sorry, I thought there was a second caller tonight
that was talking about her experiences opening up a community
group there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
She can speak to that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Yeah, Cura Matthew, thank you for calling. Firstly, I think
that I think what you're doing is community building. You know,
when you're when you're when you're building connections with people
based on who they are and you're showing them respect
and care, that is that is community.

Speaker 7 (01:01:59):
So they always come to me, They always come to me,
and they come on my home and they hug me
and they just want to cry, cry, cry, and they
cry on my shoulder. They hug my arms and they
cry and they I know it sounds sad, but strong,

(01:02:23):
I can handle its okay, And they come back. But
then they going back to the same family dynamics of
their life. But they keep coming back to my house
and they say, my mom and my dad and it's
not a good situation that they're living in a family
environment and they come back to my house.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 7 (01:02:46):
Always open my door.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
I guess I just want to reiterate messive that I
think it's really important if you're feeling like they keep
coming back in that emotional load lands on you are here,
that you know, you feel like you're strong. But I
do think it's really important that you both have the
resources for yourself to make sure that you are supported
and also you know, I have perhaps some resources that
you can help pathway people into in the community too. There,

(01:03:09):
because it sounds like you could potentially be a really
important support for these people getting into services themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Yeah, And what struck me about Matthew's story is that
you know you might you might. He's saying, Oh, I'm
not I'm not an organization or but the organizations are
just striving to do on a much larger scale what
we hope we can all do on an individual scale,
which is just accept people and love people, and care
people and be there for people, which it sounds like

(01:03:36):
Matthew is doing in his community.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
Yeah, thanks for the cool Matthew, and thanks for what
you do. And often when we're in that position, it's
really important to know what those resources are in the
community to help sort of pathway people and get people
hooked up with the rights and supports because we can't
do it all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah, that's right. Tonight we are talking all about family
and partner violence and rainbow communities, and we have an
expert in the studio tonight, Sandra Dixon, who's actually made
a way all out from near Wang and we to
be with us tonight. But and we could talk all
night happily. But we'd love to hear from you as well.
If you've got any experiences of family violence, partner violence,

(01:04:14):
maybe you know someone who's been through it, maybe you
have a story to tell that you think someone else
out there could do with hearing tonight, we'd love to
chat with you. Give us a call on eight hundred
and eighty ten eighty or text nine two niney two
and we'll be back after the break here on the
Nutters Club.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
air on News Talks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
It'd be welcome back to the Nutter's Club. Tonight, we're
talking with Sandra Dixon. We're talking all about family and
partner violence and Ramberg communities, and earlier Sandra was telling
us about a relationship she had that turned abusive, and
she talked about just how scary the thought of leaving
that relationship was. Kyle, I'm curious in your experience, what

(01:04:58):
is it that can give someone the strength or compel
them to be able to leave an abusive relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Well, I think sometimes it can be on reflection, quite
a small thing. I mean, you talked about your friend's
question right, which, as I understood, it was invited you
to again think, oh, I actually do have choices here.
So it's really important, I think, particularly support people or

(01:05:27):
friends or family members to recognize that our job is
to stick with people and to respect their autonomy and
the decisions that they make. I mean, obviously, if you're
out there and you're really concerned about someone's physical safety
or that you know there's clear violence, then you know
we don't want to just sort of stand by why
that happens. But it is a process often for people

(01:05:47):
to leave, and I think often just being somewhere where
they can talk about their doubts and what they're experiencing
and what they're thinking about and the hurdles, and you know,
sometimes it might be as simple as saying, if you
don't want to go home tonight, you can stay here,
you know, recognize and they may very well go back
the next day. But that actually continuing to give them
access to the Senate that they have choice and agency

(01:06:10):
is really important.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
And maybe even that you know, if you do receive
kindness from someone. Something that struck me about your story, Sandra,
was that you received kindness from someone. I wonder if
that kind of lets something up inside you, see I
deserve better than this.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
Yep. I think what Kyle just said is being on
about staying in connection. So if you've got if you've
got someone in your life and you look at their
relationship and you go, yikes, there's stuff in there I'm
not comfortable worth, there can be a tendency sometimes to
kind of go, I don't want to be around that,
and that's actually the last thing you want to do.

(01:06:49):
You want to try and keep that connection as open
as you possibly can. Sometimes you might be saying something like, gosh,
I'm not sure about the way your partner's treating you.
You know, you might not go hard at it, but
you might just just flag a little something there. But
you really want when that person's ready for them to
know they can come to you. You want them to

(01:07:10):
know that your house is a safe place for them,
that your answer the call if they ask for help.
That Yeah, So there's sort of this thing about being
able to indicate that you're kind of watching or aware
without going down on like a ton of brokes and

(01:07:30):
staying in relationship. I reckon it's the most important.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Thing, making sure they know you're there if and when
they need you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Yeah, yeah. And I can imagine if if someone's in
an abusive relationship, particularly if you really don't like the
person abusing them, which is highly like you, you might
want to run a mile. But that's not the thing
to do, is it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Or jump to advice giving too quickly. I mean that's
the other understandably human mistake, right, is to say, well,
you just need to get out, I'll come and pack
your stuff now, and it's like they may not be
ready to do that, and respecting that they may not
be ready to do that, but I think you're right,
so Andrew also being that kind of reality check, right,
even just being able to say that doesn't sound quite
right to me. You know, is that the kind of

(01:08:13):
relationship you want to be? And is it okay to
be talked to like that, you know, ask questions?

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Yeah? Yeah, I think that's exactly right, because I think
that thing of jumping to advice gaming. We all want
to be good friends. We will want to be It's.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Very easy to solve other people's problems.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
But that's often that the point where relationships can break
down when people don't take your advice, or when they
feel ashamed that they haven't been able to take.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
You in the films, they might have failed if they
can't do it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
That's right, and in isolation, that is the absolute friend
of someone using power and control, it really is. Yeah,
we want to do everything we can to try and
reduce that if we can.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
I feel like it's avoiding ultimatums, right, Like you may
well want that person to leave that relationship more than
anything else. But if you create a binary where you're
either leaving or you're not, and make it really clear
that this is what I want you to do. Then
they might not hang out with you because they feel
like I haven't done I haven't taken mixed advice, can't
hang out with them anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
Yeah, I think that's dear right. And I also think
if you go back to what happens in abuse of relationships,
which is people lose their sense of agency, their sense
of control, their ability to make decisions for themselves. How
on earth is telling someone leave now, leave now? How
is that going to help them develop agency? So really,
we want to do everything we can to give people

(01:09:33):
as much control over their decision making as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah, So these are the kind of qualities we want
to have on an individual level with people in our
sphere of existence. How did you, I'm curious to know,
how did you go about wanting to embody those qualities
when you're talking about it on an organizational level, How
do you work to embody those qualities?

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
As Orkhukua, that's such a beautiful question and such a
huge question as well. Like I think, at the most
fundamental level, when it comes to working survivors in our communities,
we do absolutely everything we can to increase people's options
and choices and ability to make decisions for themselves. Sometimes

(01:10:18):
that means stepping back and living enough room for people
who especially if people have been in abusive context for
a long time. Sometimes that means feeling really impatient, you know,
and you've just got to actually manage that, because that's
not got anything to do with the other person. That's
your stuff. I think in terms of the way we
try to behave with the people that work for us,

(01:10:41):
and so we work really hard to develop kind of
authentic relationships based on people being able to raise concerns
or raise anything that's going on for them. I guess
be good, be a good employer in some ways, but
it's sort of about more than that, because who hate
that on on Cohukuta literally means the building of peace

(01:11:04):
within Rainbow communities. And if you think about all the
different ways that we're different from each other, you know,
we're different genders, we're different races, we're different ages. There's
a lot of things that without meaning to, can be
allowing some groups to have more power than others. Yeah,
as well as people actually meaning to do that too,

(01:11:26):
So we work quite hard to try and pay attention
to power and how it operates. I guess that's quite
important to all of us. I think.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
We are. You know, we mentioned briefly in the break
just how hard it is to get progress in this area.
When you're advocating for rainbow communities. What are the biggest
challenges and resistances you come up against?

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
Goodness, have you got much? I mean fundamentally, when when
you say the word domestic violence in New Zealand, you
still think about men's violence towards women, right and fundamentally,
we have a we have a family violence stem that
is not shaped for Takatabi and rainbow people. So there

(01:12:13):
is a real need to change the way we expect
our services to behave. I'll give you a really small example.
At the moment, we don't collect data and our services
about people's sexuality or gender identity, so we have no
idea about how many people that are part of Taktaba

(01:12:36):
and rainbow community actually going to services. We know that
the rates of violence towards us are much higher than
other people, but we don't know whether or not those
folks get to go to services. And that's something that
at a government level would be really easy to change.
You just make it part of people's funding contracts. They
need to start asking, and then you get to get
to see the picture of what's happening. So there's lots

(01:12:58):
of there's lots of things that are fundamentally to do
with who we imagine is going to go through that
door and how we imagine we're going to behave towards
them that need to change.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
So a lot of it is to do with people
being a lot more open minded about what family violence
and partner violence looks like, and it's getting out of
that rutive it's always a man treating a woman badly.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
Yeah, Yeah, And I think one of the ways that
at the moment, police and other agencies assess risk they
use gender as a shorthand. So they go man, woman, Oh,
the man's going to be the violent one. Well, you
can't do that in relationships between two men or between
two women. You can't do that in relationships with trans people.

(01:13:42):
So there's a real need to kind of move into
risk being much more about what the person concerned has
going on in their life, what resources they have available.
How they describe risk shorthand is a. It's an understandable thing.
I think we all use shorthand all the time, aye,
but gender is shorthand for Takatabi and Ramo folks doesn't

(01:14:03):
work at all.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
Yeah, it's a really understandable shorthand for the police row
when they're turn up at three o'clock in the morning,
that the odds are overwhelmingly true that if they're in
a family violent situation, the most lethal person in that
situation is the male. I mean, you know, people, there's
lots of ways that we can argue about that and
talk about that, But when you're making a snap judgment,

(01:14:27):
which the police have to do, that's the best risk
call to make. But I understand what you're saying, and
it strikes me that the immediate problem is that takes time,
you know, and if particularly if you're someone who perhaps
isn't familiar with, you know, same sex relationships and relationship dynamics,
to try and figure out what's going on in that
heat of the moment would be quite a tricky thing

(01:14:49):
to be trained in and learn about, wouldn't it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
And yet it's possible.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
I have no doubt that it is.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
Yeah, I think I think you're right, and I think
one of the problems with that way of kind of
considering it is that we often see violences isolated events,
and actually, when it comes to partner violence, it's not
an isolated event, it's a pattern of behavior. So when
I train the place, I talk to them about needing

(01:15:16):
to see the movie of the relationship, not just the
still because once you start asking questions about whose life
is getting smaller over time, who has control, who's making decisions,
and so on, the person who's using violence and abuse
in the relationship will become clear. Yeah, and I know

(01:15:36):
what you mean about in the moment of responding to
a crisis, but actually, most partner violence we're not in crisis.
Crisis is a tiny percentage of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
Actually, yeah, Oh, we're talking to Sandra Dixon tonight about
family and partner violence and rainbow communities, and I'd like
to invite you to join the conversation. Maybe you've had
an experience that Sandra's story reminds you of, and we're
here to talk to you if you like. We've got
psychotherapist car MacDonald on hand. Give us a call on

(01:16:10):
one hundred and eighty ten eighty or text nine two
ninety two. Speaking of texts, We've had a really interesting
question from a texter, but we do have to go
to a break first. I'll read that text in a
couple of minutes after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Here on the Nutters Club, it's overnight talk on News
Talks EDB. This is the Nutters Club, thanks to New
Zealand air on Newstalks EDB.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
Welcome back to the Nutterers Club. Tonight, we're talking with
Sandra Dixon about family and partner violence within rainbow communities.
And we've had a text in which I think is
a question well worth asking. It says, hey, there, I've
missed the first half of the show. What's the difference
between abusive rainbow relationships and non rainbow abusive relationships. I'm
hearing a lot of commonalities.

Speaker 4 (01:16:51):
Great question. There are a lot of commonalities. The patterns
of coeresive control and abusive behavior are quite similar. I
think the specific kinds of behavior can differ a little bit.
The threat of outing, for example, doesn't work if you're
heterosexual and the whole world knows you're straight, right, Whereas

(01:17:15):
that something that can be quite common in our relationships.
Hiding gender affirming equipment or medication hiding HIV medication pretty
specific for our communities as well. The isolation from communities
that we're part of, specifically because we're in a relationship,

(01:17:35):
so you know, why are you still going to the
gay bay or with me? Now? You don't need to
spend time with your friends there anymore. Those kinds of
things again really common, and I think isolation works a
little bit differently for our communities because we already have
fewer people we can talk to about our relationships. So
it's really that kind of cultural scaffolding of homophobia, biphobia,

(01:17:57):
transphobia that makes it a little bit different. Gives someone
using abuse more tools I guess to behave abusively. The
other stuff that can be different is that our families
are not always available as resources, which they are for
many not all, but many straits as people, and of

(01:18:18):
course the ability to go to services is really different
for us. We don't have services all over the country.
Those will be the main things I reckon.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
You know, that was really well summarized. You mentioned earlier
that the trans communities are getting heated responses from every
direction at the moment. Is there specific challenges people in
the trans community face when it comes to family and
partner violence.

Speaker 4 (01:18:44):
Oh definitely. I think that the level of hostility towards
trans people at the moment globally and here in altered
or makes it much much harder for So, your parents
and you find out that your child is trans you
go and try and find out a little bit more
about what that means, and you head onto the internet

(01:19:07):
and immediately you've got, you know, shock full information about
how awful transitioning is, how it's not real, et cetera,
et cetera. All of those things make families much less
safe for trends engender on conforming children to come out
into the world in general, the way that trends and
non binary people are being treated on the street, in

(01:19:31):
their day to day lives, at work, in housing, all
of those things make life much harder. It means people
are carrying a lot more traumaful stop. And then, as
I said earlier, that the tools that you can use
in an abusive relationship, calling someone an abusive term that
they hear every day on the street anyway, that's something

(01:19:52):
that hurts a lot more when it's coming from someone
close to you, and it's a tool that's available because
transphobia is so virulent at the moment in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):
It also strike me too, in response to the text
as question, that I think one of the differences, and
I think this is true of all marginalized community, actually,
is that it's that much harder to access the police,
or not because the police might respond, but because there's
a fear of calling the police or other support services
that I think, you know, it's already very difficult for

(01:20:24):
someone in a stereotypically common methic violent situation to reach
out for that kind of help. It's even harder if
you've had negative experiences of services yourself as well.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Just to throw another example in there too, if you
think about being a parent, being a queer parent, being
he's been gay, bisexual, transparent, and you're in an abusive relationship,
and one of the things that your abusive partner is
saying to you is, oh, you know, I'm going to
I'm going to tell people and you're not going to
have access to your children. Now, that might sound like

(01:20:58):
a ridiculous threat, but it really wasn't not that long ago.
And I know people who have had their access to
their children compromised by their sex, wealthy, your gender because
of the way that their ex partner has framed it.
So it's like you've got you've got more tools of
the state historically and contemporary discrimination at your beck and

(01:21:20):
call to keep people trapped. Mmmm.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
And something that struck me about what you said earlier, Sandra,
is that there's already been so much prejudiced there's already
such a kind of bad narrative being told about rainbow
communities in the widest society that you don't want to
give people more ammunition in a way. You don't want
to you don't want to give them another reason to
marginalize rama communities.

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Well, we're going to have to go to another break now,
but we're talking all about family violence and partner violence
within rainbow communities here in Old tailed Or. Will be
back talking again with Sandra Dixon after this break here
on the Nuttis Club.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
air on News Dogs'd.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Be welcome back to the Nutts Club tonight. We're talking
with Sandra Dixon, who is the founder of an organization
called hoted Or Kahukuta who work to build violence free TakaTak.
We're in rainbow communities here in Old ted Or And
actually I asked you a question earlier, Sandra, but I'd
like to direct the same question to you, Kyle. I
think it's important. We talked about families where someone comes out,

(01:22:31):
and maybe these are families that haven't had a lot
of connection with Rainberg communities. They haven't, they don't they
don't know what it's like to be a member of
a Rainbow community. And then suddenly they have a family
member who is and has come out, and they might
not know how to respond or react. What advice might
you give to someone like that, Kyle, Well, they're the
same person. That's what Sandra said, must be good advice.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
I mean it's sort of I don't know, and I
don't say that to minimize that the very real I
think for some people distress and adjustment and you know,
change and the way that they think about their world
that might bring about for them, because you know, that's
a really difficult process for people. But it's true that
they're the same person, and it's an opportunity to learn

(01:23:20):
something new about the world and to find out about
something that you may not know about. And I mean
I would, funnily enough, I would actually say the last
thing you need to do is jump on the internet,
because you know, there's there's so much mis and disinformation
around about just about everything, but in particular in this space.
But I think it's okay to acknowledge your own difficulty,

(01:23:43):
you know, to say, I'm really struggling with this, but
you know, I love you and I want to support you,
but I don't know what to think about this. I
don't understand. But I think the important thing as a
parent or a family member is to is to own
that as yours, you know, to not put that onto
the family member or the child, or whoever it might be,
and say, you know, you need to explain this to me,

(01:24:04):
you need to help me figure this out. They're already
trying to figure out quite a lot at that point.
So actually that's your job to figure that out. And
it might be appropriate for you to go and talk
to a counselor or a therapist or you know, an
expert in this area. There's lots of people that can
support you with that journey. But to do that work yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
What were the positive helpful what were the best responses
you got your and your process of coming out, Sandra.

Speaker 4 (01:24:32):
Well, I was just just building on what Kyle said. Actually,
I was just thinking about one of the things I
did in my twenties with my mum. We both love reading.
I would send her books with queer characters in them.
I thought, I thought I was sending my mother books
about the beauty and joy of queer life. My mother
thanked me after several years for sending her books about

(01:24:54):
parents having to come to terms with having queer children.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
You see yourself on.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
Both right, You know, we were both we were seeing
the perspective that was relevant to us. Yeah, my mother
ended up providing some my best moments, I'd say, around
around someone i'd come out to. In terms of acceptance,
she really shifted a lot. And some of that was
because the world around who shifted a lot. And she
saw queer characters on Gray's Anatomy, and she saw you know,

(01:25:22):
I listen to queer stories on the radio, and.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
That stuff does make a difference, doesn't it? Representation?

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
I heard something I heard a podcast about what was
the sitcom in America where a gay couple as the
main characters. The name escapes me, but it's amazing how
much the research showed that shifted the dial on people's
acceptance of of gape something Darma and Greg. Yeah, it
might have been. Our producers just told.

Speaker 3 (01:25:49):
Me that it's definitely one of those. I was thinking
Will and Grace and Modern Family is another one we
read more recently.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, more recently. I think it was Will
and Grace.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
Actually it does because you're literally providing people with a
way to think about something that they may not encounter
in their day to day life or may not have
no one that they've encountered, and then in the day life.

Speaker 4 (01:26:09):
I think, are you guys, I was just going to say,
I think sometimes the opposite is true too. My mother
was anti civil unions for queer people to begin with
because she didn't see what the fuss was about. She
just thought we should have relationships that we wanted to
And then she saw the Destiny Church march in Wellington

(01:26:31):
and her description of that was that she felt like
she was watching a Nazi parade and she thought, I
don't want I'm not aligned with that, and so it
changed her mind. So I think sometimes when people see
some of the things that are done and said about
Takataba and Rainbow people, that can be enough to decide
you want to be on our side too.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
The irony of the march actually pushing someone in the
opposite direction and clarifies what we think. Speaking of cultural shifts,
then here's a question for you, Sandra. I know how hard, actually,
don't I only know a small part of how hard
you work in this area. I know you worked tirelessly
for it, and I know so it's often not easy
at all, because changes never happens as quickly as you

(01:27:12):
like it too. When you one day retire from this work,
what change do you want to have seen.

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
M from this work in particular, rather than from the
wider world. I guess I would like to see there
being an expectation that a takatabi or rainbow person can
go into any service in the country and be treated
with respect and dignity and be offered the things they
need to be safe from violence. That's not the case

(01:27:43):
at the moment, and I'd really like to see that happening.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
And so that's not about building numerous takatapa and rainbow services.
It's about our public services that deal with everyone being
well educated, well informed and know how to treat rainbow
people with the respect they deserve.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
Yeah, I think it's both and I think specialist kind
of attention here keeps changing what we think we need
to know. But I want to see someone in Ekotahuna
being able to walk into their police station and get
what they need. I don't think it's okay that we
don't have that at the moment. I really don't.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
What's it going to take? Mmmm?

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
I think we need to stop at the moment. What
happens around violence is we go family of minds and
sexual once very bad things, very very bad, bad for
all these people, and probably worse for Takatabu and Rainbow people.
And that's the extent of it. I want to stop that.
I want us to actually start building some of the
things that will change. I want us to develop proper

(01:28:50):
training programs that everyone is expected to attend. I want
I want there to be accountability around what services are offering. Yeah,
I guess it's always about listening to community at the
end of the day, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
And to take it from kind of a macro level
to something quite personal and individual. If someone's listening to
this right now, and they're a member of a Rainbow
community and they are currently in a violent relationship, what
would you want to say to them.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
Hm oh, I guess I'd want to say that if
someone's treating you in ways that don't respect and honor
who you are, that's not okay, and to encourage people
to start talking about that with people around them. It
doesn't have to be a specialist to begin with. It

(01:29:42):
might be your best friend, it might be your mum,
it might be a dad, it might be a brother,
your sister. But when relationships are abusive, when someone is
repeatedly trying to control what you do, trying to coerce
you into doing the things you want they want rather
than what you want, that's not okay. We don't have
to put up with that. You know, there's no such

(01:30:03):
thing as the only queer in the village these days.
You know, we can be in relationships that are sustaining
and joyful and respectful and fun, and that's what we deserve.
So yeah, if you're worried about what's happening in your relationship,
start talking to people about it. Reach out, start talking
to people about what's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
Well, Sandra, I just want to say really heartfelt thank
you for making the journey up here. I know the
journey wasn't short and You've shared your story with vulnerability
and generosity, and so thank you for that. Keep up
your amazing work. Thanks Kyle, it is always a pleasure
to see you. Thank you my pleasure to be here.

(01:30:43):
Good luck approaching the second half of your hundred years.
Thank you. If listening to Sandra's story tonight has brought
anything up for you and you'd like to talk to someone,
you can call one seven three seven anytime of the
day or night to talk to a trained counselor if
you'd like to connect with the organization Sandra Feller founded
or Cohukuta. The website is Cohukuda dot co dot m Z.

(01:31:07):
A big thank you to our producers Boris and Bevin.
Thank you also to News Talk ZB for letting us
in the door and New Zealand on Air for picking
up the bills. And finally a boog thank you to
you the listeners for tuning in, calling in, texting in.
See you next time here on the Nutters Club Pormri air.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
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