You know, none of these problems are new. The problem has always been getting the funding to serve everyone who needs safety.When we talk about do
You know, none of these problems are new. The problem has always been getting the funding to serve everyone who needs safety.
When we talk about domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and other forms of abuse, there is a principle I wish we began with more often:
Nobody should have to become less safe so somebody else can receive help.
Male Survivors need somewhere safe to go.
Lesbian Survivors need somewhere safe to go.
Disabled Survivors need somewhere safe to go.
Female Survivors who need female-only environments because of trauma, privacy, religion, dignity or safety need somewhere safe to go.
Those statements do not contradict one another.
The challenge is not deciding whose vulnerability is real.
The challenge is building enough safe options that nobody has to surrender a legitimate safety need for somebody else to receive help.
1. 🛡️ Universal access to safety does not require universal access to every particular space
These ideas are often treated as though they mean the same thing.
They don’t.
Everyone deserves protection from violence.
That establishes an obligation to provide help.
It does not automatically establish that every person must receive that help in the same space in every particular shelter, room, ward, housing arrangement or specialized service.
We can guarantee access to safety without requiring every safety environment to serve every population in precisely the same way.
2. 🏠 Different Survivors can have different safety needs
Imagine several people escaping violent relationships.
One female Survivor desperately needs a female-only environment because being housed with unfamiliar males would intensify her trauma.
Another Survivor doesn’t care about the sex of the other residents but desperately needs a wheelchair-accessible room.
Another needs somewhere that can accommodate her children.
Another needs protection from an abusive same-sex partner.
A male Survivor needs emergency accommodation that accepts men.
Another Survivor needs interpretation.
These Survivors share something profound.
They need safety.
That doesn’t mean their needs are identical.
3. ❤️🩹 Trauma can change what “safe” feels like
Someone who has never experienced sexual or domestic violence may think about a shelter primarily as a building.
A Survivor may experience it very differently.
Who can enter?
Who is sleeping nearby?
Can I lock the door?
Who shares the bathroom?
Who might see me undressed?
Will somebody believe me?
Can my abuser find me?
Can I sleep tonight?
Can I finally stop watching the doorway?
These are not trivial details surrounding safety.
For somebody escaping violence, they can be part of safety itself.
4. 🚪 Privacy is not the opposite of inclusion
We sometimes speak as though privacy boundaries are inherently hostile.
But Survivor services use boundaries constantly.
Confidential addresses.
Locked doors.
Private counseling rooms.
Rules governing visitors.
Separate sleeping arrangements.
Protected records.
Restrictions on photography.
Secure children’s areas.
Why?
Because access itself can become a safety issue.
A boundary is not necessarily a declaration that the person outside it is bad.
Sometimes it simply means:
This particular space has a particular purpose.
5. 👩🏾 Female-only provision can meet a legitimate Survivor need
Some female Survivors want or need an environment without males.
That may arise from previous sexual violence.
It may involve religious requirements surrounding undressing or sleeping.
It may involve disability.
It may involve intimate medical or personal care.
It may simply involve bodily privacy.
And sometimes a woman may not be able to explain exactly why.
After violence, she may simply know:
“I cannot sleep in a room with an unfamiliar male right now.”
We do not need to diagnose that boundary before respecting it. And we most certainly do not attempt to talk her out of it. The only reason she is even there is because someone harmed her.
6. 👨 Male Survivors need somewhere safe too
Men can experience domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and coercive control.
A male Survivor may face additional difficulty because people do not expect men to need these services.
His vulnerability deserves recognition.
His need for emergency accommodation deserves a response.
But there is another answer besides placing him in a female-only refuge:
Provide appropriate services for him too.
His safety should not depend upon women surrendering theirs.
And women’s safety should not depend upon pretending he doesn’t need help.
7. 🏳️🌈 Lesbian Survivors must be fully included in services for women
A lesbian Survivor is not a separate category from women.
She is a woman.
She may experience domestic violence from another woman. She may have experienced previous male violence. She may have particular concerns about being believed, having her relationship taken seriously or encountering stereotypes about lesbian relationships.
None of that removes her from female-centered services.
Sex-based provision should encompass the diversity that already exists among women.
8. ♿ Accessibility teaches us that equality does not always mean identical provision
Equality does not mean handing every Survivor exactly the same thing. My season in serving people with disabilities taught me this.
Sometimes one person needs a ramp.
Another needs an interpreter.
Another needs written information.
Another needs a quiet environment.
Another needs assistance with personal care.
Another needs a female caregiver for intimate assistance.
We understand that accommodating those differences does not mean somebody is being treated as less human.
It means needs differ.
Survivor services can begin from the same wisdom.
9. ⚖️ Rights can coexist without becoming identical
A male Survivor can have a legitimate interest in accessing appropriate domestic-violence services.
A female Survivor can have a legitimate interest in accessing female-only services.
A lesbian Survivor can have a legitimate interest in knowing that her same-sex relationship will be taken seriously.
A disabled Survivor can have a legitimate interest in accessible accommodation.
A Survivor who is a mother can have a legitimate interest in safe and trauma informed child services.
A Survivor who doesn’t speak English can have a legitimate interest in services that speak her language fluently.
The existence of one need does not prove another fraudulent.
The practical question becomes:
How do we provide for these different needs without unnecessarily taking protection from somebody else?
That is harder than declaring one universal rule.
It is also more useful.
10. 🧠 Challenging stereotypes does not answer safeguarding questions
Women should absolutely be free from restrictive stereotypes.
A woman can be masculine.
A lesbian.
A tomboy.
An athlete.
Broad-shouldered.
Short-haired.
Strong.
Uninterested in makeup.
None of that makes her less female.
But challenging stereotypes does not make sexual violence disappear.
It does not make domestic violence disappear.
It does not eliminate trauma.
And it does not automatically tell us how refuges, prisons, intimate searches, communal changing areas or sleeping arrangements should be organized.
An argument against stereotypes is not automatically an answer to a safeguarding question.
11. 🔍 Ask what the original boundary was designed to do
Before changing a safety boundary, ask why it exists.
Was it created for privacy?
Trauma?
Risk reduction?
Dignity?
Safeguarding?
Religious accommodation?
Protection from an abusive population?
Then ask:
Does that need still exist?
If it does, removing the boundary doesn’t remove the underlying problem.
Something else must replace the protection the boundary provided.
12. ⚠️ Inclusion should not require silence about conflicting needs
Sometimes two legitimate needs really do conflict.
We should be capable of acknowledging that.
It doesn’t mean either Survivor should be abandoned.
It means we have reached the point where thoughtful service design becomes necessary.
The answer cannot always be:
“One of you needs to become comfortable.”
Sometimes the better answer is:
“We need another safe option.”
13. 🛏️ More options can be more humane than fewer boundaries
Imagine a Survivor-service system with genuinely different accommodations.
Female-only refuges.
Male services.
Private rooms.
Family units.
Accessible rooms.
Individual placements for Survivors whose circumstances make communal housing unsafe.
Hotel or apartment-based emergency accommodation.
Trauma-informed transitional housing.
Specialist services for different Survivor populations.
Now we are no longer fighting over one bed.
We are designing a system around the reality that human beings arrive at the door with different histories.
The future of Survivor services does not have to mean fewer choices.
It could mean more.
14. 💰 The real problem is scarcity
When there are too few beds, too few shelters, too few specialized programs and too little funding, every accommodation begins to look like competition.
Then vulnerable people are placed against vulnerable people.
Who gets the bed?
Whose trauma takes priority?
Whose privacy gives way?
Who has to adjust?
But perhaps the failure occurred before any of those Survivors reached the door.
There weren’t enough doors.
Scarcity can turn accommodation into a zero-sum fight.
Investment can create alternatives.
15. 👩🏾 Women who don’t fit traditional femininity remain fully protected
Female-only provision cannot become feminine-only provision.
The masculine woman belongs.
The lesbian belongs.
The Black woman whose femininity somebody questions belongs.
The female athlete belongs.
The woman with a shaved head belongs.
The woman after a mastectomy belongs.
The disabled woman belongs.
The elderly woman belongs.
The tomboy who grew up and never became feminine belongs.
Sex-based protection cannot become a beauty contest, personality test or femininity examination.
These women are not exceptions to female humanity.
They demonstrate its range.
16. 🧭 Bring the question back to the Survivor
A person has escaped violence and arrived asking for help.
What does this particular Survivor need to become safer?
What accommodations are available?
What risks exist?
What privacy is needed?
What trauma needs consideration?
What happens next?
Survivor-centered services should be capable of asking those questions without requiring another vulnerable person to surrender legitimate needs.
17. 🌿 Nobody needs to be sacrificed
We do not have to decide that male Survivors don’t matter.
We don’t have to decide lesbian Survivors don’t matter.
We don’t have to decide disabled Survivors don’t matter.
And we don’t have to decide that female Survivors must surrender sex-based boundaries to demonstrate concern for everybody else.
There is another possibility.
Universal access to protection from violence is not the same proposition as universal access to every particular space.
Everyone deserves somewhere safe.
That does not mean everybody needs the same somewhere.
Our challenge should be larger:
How do we design enough safe options that nobody has to surrender a legitimate safety need in order for somebody else to receive help?
Perhaps the future of Survivor services is not asking vulnerable people to tolerate more.
Perhaps it is finally giving them more safe choices.
STOP ASKING US TO GET USED TO BEING HARMED – WE Survive Abuse
No Predator Has the Authority to Rename Violence As a “Right.” – WE Survive Abuse
What Happens When the People Stop Listening to Women – WE Survive Abuse