The UK's Only LGBT Domestic Violence Charity is Still Fighting For Its LIfe

Four out of five trans people will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. One in four lesbian, gay or bi people will be victims too. These figures are from research by Broken Rainbow, the UK's only LGBT domestic violence charity, which over the last few months has been fighting for its survival.

Last Wednesday, the charity sent out a desperate tweet: "We're days from closing due to lack of received funding. Please support with any donations now before it's too late." The charity, which is based in Manchester, gets its main source of funding from a Home Office grant that had only just been confirmed in February. Almost two months later, they'd seen no sign of the money.

The distress call worked and later that day, Broken Rainbow tweeted that the Home Office is now "paying us in time to ensure our survival." However, this is a short term fix for a long-term problem for a much-needed charity that has been teetering on the brink of closure of months.

"Yes, the imminent threat of closure has now died down. But we now need to recuperate some reserves so if there's a delay in our money coming through again, we have funds to bridge the gap," says Broken Rainbow's Training Coordinator Emma Baldry. The Home Office delay has also proved damaging to Broken Rainbow's other fundraising efforts. "Because the Home Office had taken so long confirming our funding, it had a knock-on effect," Baldry explains. "A lot of funders use the Home Office as a guarantee that we're viable as a charity and we're going to continue our work."

The work the Manchester-based charity does is specific—they expect to make 10,000 points of contact in 2016, mainly through their helpline and online chat service, with a staff of just 16 people. "Many of the other services out there are about gender violence—men being violent towards women," says Broken Rainbow's Managing Director, Jo Harvey Barringer. "They're not set up to support lesbian, bi, and trans women, let alone gay, bi, and trans men. And there's an added barrier to the LGBT community in that people need to 'out' themselves to get help. If your partner is threatening to 'out' you to family, friends, and work colleagues, you will not want to 'out' yourself to the police or another service to get help and support."

Broken Rainbow guarantees your anonymity and that the person you speak to is LGBT. Jo explains that people tend to use the helpline "after the event," while the online chat service can offer support as people are actually experiencing domestic violence. "You can use it from your phone or tablet. We've had people saying, 'I've locked myself in the bathroom, my partner's threatening to kick the door down, my nose is bleeding, and I think I've got broken ribs, what do you think I should I do?'"

One problem, says Jo, is that domestic violence is such a hidden problem amongst LGBT people. "The community isn't very good at recognizing domestic violence as an issue," says Jo. The average phone call to Broken Rainbow lasts between 45 and 90 minutes and often involves "a bit of exploration as to what's going on, and then some realization that what the person is experiencing is actually domestic violence." After that, the charity will talk through their future options, and depending on where they are in the UK, direct them to other services. One of the many people Broken Rainbow has helped since it started work in 2004 is Gordon, who wishes not to disclose his surname. He first rang the helpline one evening that November, after his abusive partner had caught him trying to flee the apartment they shared. "He basically said, 'What the fuck are you doing?' He assaulted me really badly that night," Gordon recalls. "I had been with him around 18 months by that point. I had moved in with him that January and about four days later, he tried to strangle me. It was just ongoing, constant abuse. I was diagnosed HIV-positive while I was in that relationship and he threatened to tell my employers and my parents about my HIV-positive status before I had chance to come to terms with it."

Broken Rainbow was a lifeline for Gordon. "There were times when I was phoning them three or four times a day. They allowed me to talk. They listened. They helped me understand that what had happened was absolutely not my fault—that I certainly wasn't to blame." Broken Rainbow also offered Gordon practical support. "The last time [my former partner] assaulted me, he had cornered me behind the door as I was trying to get out of the apartment and he was punching my head and my teeth had burst through my lip. I was on the floor trying to defend myself and he was screaming at me: 'If the HIV that I gave you doesn't kill you, then I will kill you.' The only way for me to get out of this situation was to go to the police, but initially I wasn't treated very well by the police. Broken Rainbow helped me every step of the way."

Gordon says that when he felt "bullied" by the police LGBT liaison officer assigned to him, Broken Rainbow arranged for police officers from other areas to prepare him on the telephone for his next round of police interviews. Broken Rainbow then arranged for a more understanding police officer to accompany him to these interviews. "When he finally appeared in court in August 2006, there was someone from Broken Rainbow sitting in the public gallery, just to be there for me." Gordon's former partner was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm by unlawfully and maliciously infecting Gordon with HIV. He was sentenced to three years and four months in jail, with another year added because he absconded before sentencing. He has since died in prison.

A Home Office spokesperson confirmed last week that the charity has funding until early 2017. "So there's no definite that we're not going to end up in this situation again," Emma Baldry says, adding: "We were completely overwhelmed with the amounts that people were donating" when the charity's future was threatened last week. One of the biggest donors over the last few months was another LGBT organization, London-based equality and diversity charity METRO.

METRO's CEO Dr. Greg Ussher told VICE that his charity "has seen the harsh impact that austerity is having across the LGBT sector. We are in a position to be able to assist and feel it is our responsibility to help when we can… We have already seen PACE, the LGBT mental health charity, close its doors this year. We don't want this to become a trend for LGBT services."

When PACE dissolved in January, it left a support vacuum in the LGBT community that no other organization can fill. Something similar would happen if Broken Rainbow were to disappear—leaving thousands of LGBT people vulnerable in abusive situations. As Gordon says: "I don't know who I'd have gone to if there wasn't Broken Rainbow. They were an absolute life-saver for me."