“Notions of Safety”
Preventing Family and Sexual Violence in South Asian LGBTQIA+ Communities in Aotearoa New Zealand
A note on sensitive content & support - please read before continuing
This page discusses topics including family violence, sexual violence, and harm within LGBTQIA+ and South Asian communities. Some content may be distressing or triggering. Please take care of yourself — you may choose to step away at any time.
The information provided here is for general awareness and support only. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a qualified health, legal, or medical professional. If you are in immediate danger, please contact emergency services or a trusted support service right away.
Introduction
LGBTQIA+ people of colour experience heightened levels of harm and encounter unique obstacles to safety, visibility and support, arising from the combined effects of sexual or gender-based marginalisation alongside racism and socioeconomic inequality.
The conditions of safety (and the risks of harm) shift sharply when sexuality and gender diversity intersect with race, ethnicity, migration histories, faith, class, abilities, and cultural expectations. These intersections can heighten vulnerability while simultaneously narrowing safe options for disclosure, help-seeking, and community connection.
Our Study
Our study was designed to address this gap by elevating the voices of South Asian LGBTQIA+ people living in Aotearoa. We are part of this community and our community is frequently spoken about through stereotypes and/or excluded altogether in discussions of family and sexual violence prevention. While this is beginning to change due to the important work of community collectives and organisations committed to amplifying these experiences, significant progress is still required.
Literature Review
Research on family violence and sexual violence affecting LGBTQIA+ people within ethnic and diaspora communities remains limited in Aotearoa New Zealand. While there is a growing evidence base on violence in LGBTQIA+ communities overall, there is far less work that is ethnically specific, and even less that centres the experiences of South Asian LGBTQIA+ people. The result is a knowledge gap where communities and services are often required to rely on partial quantitative indicators, overseas comparative studies, and practice-based insight, rather than robust, locally grounded evidence.
Our study responds to this gap by providing qualitative accounts that illuminate how risk is shaped by intersectional conditions (race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, faith, migration, class and disability/neurodiversity) and by the environments in which harm occurs or is prevented (family systems, diaspora networks, workplaces, public spaces, schools and service settings). In doing so, it helps explain why patterns visible in national statistics may be experienced in distinct ways by South Asian LGBTQIA+ people in Aotearoa.
Trans and Non-binary Experiences of Sexual Violence
The Counting Ourselves research programme provides the strongest national quantitative data on trans and non-binary people’s experiences (Yee et at., 2025). Recent reporting from the 2022 survey indicates that more than two in five trans and non-binary participants reported someone had forced or tried to force them to have sexual intercourse at some point in their lives.
The Counting Ourselves 2022 executive summary reports findings from 2,631 trans and non-binary people aged 14–86 across Aotearoa, with over half identifying as non-binary (56%). It highlights persistent and, in some areas, worsening inequities since 2018, including widespread experiences of discrimination and violence: 19% had received threats of physical violence in the past four years, and more than two in five reported attempted or forced sexual intercourse. The study summary also points to severe mental health impacts, with 77% reporting high or very high psychological distress (around six times the general population rate), and in the past year 53% seriously considering suicide and 10% attempting suicide. Alongside this, it describes substantial unmet need for timely, accessible gender-affirming healthcare (including long waits and limited access to surgery), and notes that while many participants reported pride and connection with community, these protective supports are not equally available, particularly outside major cities, and inequities are compounded for Māori participants, who reported higher rates of homelessness, conversion practices, violence, and suicidality despite strong cultural and gender identity pride (Yee et at., 2025).
This matters for our study because several participants described safety as something that can remain fragile even when the external environment is “peaceful”. One participant captured this mind–body dissonance directly: “I’m in this most peaceful country… But like in my body, I still didn’t feel safe.” Their account supports a key interpretive point for violence prevention, which is that, trauma and chronic vigilance can persist long after migration or after leaving overtly unsafe environments, shaping help-seeking, trust in services, and everyday functioning.
Sexual Coercion within Gay and Bisexual Men
Aotearoa New Zealand research also signals the presence of sexual coercion within gay and bisexual men’s communities, indicating that sexual violence in Rainbow contexts can include coercive dynamics rather than only overt force (Braun, et al., 2009). Qualitative work has documented experiences of forced, coerced, or unwanted sex among gay and bisexual men in Aotearoa. This literature aligns with our participants’ accounts that queer people can feel less likely to be taken seriously when harm occurs. One participant in our study, describing sexual assault, said: “Being a queer person, like you don’t really get taken seriously enough.” This theme, erasure, disbelief, or minimisation, becomes a structural risk factor in itself, because it discourages disclosure and delays support.
Comparative Evidence on South Asian LGBTQIA+ Communities Overseas
Because Aotearoa New Zealand-specific comparative evidence for South Asian LGBTQIA+ people is scarce, overseas studies provide a limited but relevant reference point, particularly where they identify mechanisms that plausibly operate in Aotearoa’s Rainbow ecosystems (racialised desirability hierarchies, fetishisation, service distrust, family honour dynamics, and fear of reputational harm). A community survey analysis of South Asian Americans found that LGB+ South Asian participants experienced a disproportionate burden of sexual violence and were more likely to have experienced rape multiple times than heterosexual peers (Ali, et at., 2022). Related reporting from the same publication stream also indicates high levels of contact-based sexual violence and rape experiences among South Asian survivors in the sample. These findings cannot be transplanted uncritically into Aotearoa; nevertheless, they highlight a plausible pattern, which is that, sexual violence risk may be amplified where sexuality intersects with racialisation and diaspora context, especially when reporting barriers, stigma, and service mistrust are present.
Key Contributions of Our Study
1. Why ethnicity matters within Rainbow safety
Our participants repeatedly described that safety within Rainbow contexts is not uniform. “Inclusive” environments could still feel unsafe due to whiteness, racism, and the social consequences of visibility. One participant described entering spaces and immediately searching for racial safety cues: “I try to find people who look like me… if there are a lot of white people in the room, then I do feel a little bit threatened.”
This offers a crucial interpretive bridge between broad Rainbow violence statistics and ethnic-community realities: racialised othering can shape who feels able to access support, disclose harm, or seek connection, and can increase isolation, which is an established risk condition in violence prevention.
2. Family violence and normalisation
As noted earlier, the wider Aotearoa New Zealand evidence indicates elevated family harm risk for people with diverse sexualities, and our study helps explain how family violence can be minimised or normalised within intimate cultural contexts. One participant described domestic violence as something they grew up seeing, while also noting minimisation when it is later named: “Even now when I bring it up with my mom, she'll be like, oh, no, that's nothing.”
These matters for prevention because normalisation can delay recognition, reduce reporting, and shape what people think they should tolerate.
3. Service mistrust and barriers to support
The literature consistently identifies service barriers for Rainbow communities; our participants described those barriers as intersectional and cultural, including culturally mismatched models of care. One participant characterised their experience as occurring within “a very… white system… a Western system”, which did not feel inclusive.
When people anticipate dismissal or misunderstanding, the pathway from harm to help becomes longer and riskier.
4. Practice-based insight and risk mechanisms
Drawing on service experience, the sexual violence risk factors our participants list are consistent with mechanisms found across the broader literature on sexual racism and racialised desirability hierarchies in queer dating contexts, and they resonate with patterns reflected in our interviews. Our participants did not always name these mechanisms in the language of risk factors, but they frequently described the conditions through which they operate.
In our interviews, these conditions included racialised desirability and the bargaining it can produce, where people feel pressured to accept dynamics they would otherwise refuse because connection feels scarce; fetishisation and objectification, which participants linked to feeling dehumanised and having less control in sexual encounters; and racism in inclusive spaces, which can constrain choice by shrinking the number of settings and relationships that feel safe. Participants also described differences in sexual scripts and values, including careful negotiation of visibility, disclosure, and reputational risk across diaspora and mainstream contexts, which can create confusion about consent and expectations. Where sex and queerness are highly stigmatised, some participants described having fewer opportunities to develop language and frameworks for recognising coercion, reinforcing the concern that queer people are not taken seriously after harm occurs. Finally, accounts of structural vulnerability such as housing insecurity, money stress, isolation, and fear of consequences show how immigration precarity (even when not always named explicitly) can shape whether harm is disclosed and whether services feel accessible.
5. Family violence in ethnic LGBTQIA+ communities: what remains under-evidenced
The practice-based observations on family violence (conversion practices, withholding gender-affirming care, queerphobic, transphobic, biphobic violence) reflect the types of harms discussed in policy and community reporting, but the literature remains thin, particularly in Aotearoa-specific, ethnically grounded forms. The existing Aotearoa New Zealand evidence base demonstrates elevated risk of family harm for people with diverse sexualities, yet it does not adequately explain how family violence is shaped by diaspora surveillance, honour frameworks, faith stigma, and migration stressors.
That is where qualitative studies like ours are especially valuable: they illuminate how family, culture, and community can be sources of love and belonging while simultaneously shaping the conditions under which harm is hidden, minimised, or endured.
In summary, existing evidence in Aotearoa shows elevated violence risk for Rainbow communities overall and particularly severe sexual violence exposure for trans and non-binary people. Overseas comparative evidence suggests that South Asian LGB+ communities may face disproportionate burdens of sexual violence. However, there remains a substantial gap in Aotearoa New Zealand-specific research focused on family and sexual violence among LGBTQIA+ people within ethnic communities. Our qualitative interviews help address that gap by showing how violence risk and safety are experienced at the intersection of race, migration, faith, family, and queerness, and by identifying practical points for prevention that are culturally realistic and community-led.
Methodology
The research underwent a comprehensive ethics review process through the Ministry of Social Development in 2024. The ethics committee provided positive feedback on the study’s design and purpose, emphasising its value in amplifying the voices of South Asian LGBTQIA+ individuals. The committee also offered suggestions to strengthen the research process, particularly in participant confidentiality, informed consent, and data security. These recommendations were carefully considered and fully integrated into the methodology to ensure adherence to ethical best practice.
Findings
Across Aotearoa, violence prevention work is increasingly framed through Te Aorerekura’s focus on eliminating family violence and sexual violence and strengthening primary prevention and community capability (Ministry of Social Development, 2024). Our findings sit firmly within that direction, while also showing why ‘one-size-fits-all’ prevention approaches can miss the mark for brown LGBTQIA+ communities.
First, our study participants’ stories repeatedly located safety as something layered psychological, emotional, physical, cultural, spiritual, and socio-political. This matters in the family and sexual violence context because prevention is not only about responding after harm has occurred; it is also about reducing the everyday conditions that make harm more likely and support less accessible. For many participants, risk was not confined to one site such as home or a relationship. Instead, safety shifted across workplaces, faith settings, family gatherings, dating contexts, public space at night, and even within queer spaces. That movement, which means constantly scanning, adjusting language, managing visibility, mirrors what national work on LGBTQIA+ violence has described as heightened vulnerability shaped by stigma, inequitable power, and barriers to effective support.
Second, the stories emphasised that harm and vulnerability are often produced through both overt violence and subtler forms of social control, including being silenced, dismissed, tone-policed, pressured to hide or be subtle, or treated as acceptable only if one remains quiet. In family contexts, participants described cultural expectations around gender and sexuality, fear of family rupture, and the emotional labour of maintaining relationships while protecting themselves. In several accounts, safety required carefully controlled contact, selective disclosure, or strategic distance, showing an important nuance for prevention work that can otherwise default to simplistic ideas of family reconnection as the ideal outcome.
Third, participants’ experiences showed that Aotearoa can feel radically different depending on where you are and who you are with. Even when a place is known as queer-friendly, it may not feel safe for brown queer people if whiteness dominates, if racism is normalised, or if Islamophobia and religious stigma remain unaddressed. This aligns with wider national acknowledgement that Rainbow communities’ needs are frequently left out of family violence and sexual violence prevention and service design, and that inclusion must be practical rather than symbolic.
Finally, several stories demonstrated how safety is shaped by what is materially possible: access to stable housing, culturally safe counselling, and responsive primary care. National evidence on under-reporting and service gaps makes clear that many people cannot access the support they need, when they need it. Our participants’ narratives emphasised that reality by showing how the absence (or presence) of timely, culturally competent support can change trajectories.
In sum, these insights reinforce a core prevention message: for South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities, violence prevention must be intersectional, culturally grounded, and community-led. Without this, well-intended systems can inadvertently reproduce harm through disbelief, irrelevance, erasure, or the expectation that people should risk exposure in order to receive care.
Theme 1: Multifaceted Notions of Safety
Our study participants consistently framed safety as dynamic rather than absolute. It was not described as a single outcome (for instance, “being safe from violence”) but as a layered condition and a feeling shaped by intersecting identities and contexts. Participants spoke about safety as something felt in the body, negotiated through relationships, and produced (or undermined) across environments such as home, workplaces, public spaces, cultural gatherings, faith settings, and online life. Importantly, participants emphasised that these layers are interdependent. When one layer is destabilised, for instance, housing insecurity, racism at work, or fear of being outed, the entire sense of safety can fracture.
“I have got a serious radar for safety, especially in public spaces. I am a queer woman of colour. I am on guard most of the time.”
“I was like, you know, I'm in this most peaceful country… But like in my body, I still didn't feel safe.”
“Whether I say the phrase wife (in a lesbian marriage), or whether I say the phrase partner, will reflect my sense of safety… in my workplace, I will usually use partner.”
Theme 2: Relational Safety and Trust Issues
Safety was also repeatedly framed as something that sits between people, rather than inside any one individual. Participants described safety as emerging through the quality of their relationships, the reliability of their networks, and the social conditions that shape whether trust is rewarded or punished. As one participant put it, “safety comes from those who you’ve decided to surround yourself with or who you’ve either chosen or not had a choice in who you surround yourself with.”
This, combined with other narratives of our study participants, suggests that trust is not simply a personality trait. It is a social negotiation shaped by community surveillance, cultural expectations, and the ongoing risk of stigma.
“safety comes from those who you’ve decided to surround yourself with or who you’ve either chosen or not had a choice in who you surround yourself with.”
“I choose to be in the closet for my family… this is a cultural choice to keep harmony in the family… It is for the wellbeing of us all.”
“A safe home and a supportive community are my safety nets. I am not connected much to my family. I do not have many queer friends either.”
Critical Insights
What safety means to our communities
Safety is not singular. In our chats with South Asian LGBTQIA+ people living in Aotearoa, safety was described as something layered, changing, and deeply personal. It can be felt in the body, shaped by family and community, and influenced by racism, queerphobia, faith, and the places we move through every day.
Safety is being able to breathe, not just being unharmed
For some of us, safety means calm in our bodies, especially after growing up around tension, shouting, or violence. You can live in a peaceful country and still not feel safe inside yourself. Safety includes feeling grounded, not constantly bracing for what might happen next.
Safety is the freedom to be yourself
Safety can mean a sense of freedom to be without having to please others, and being able to talk about life without judgement. It is not about having a perfect life. It is about having spaces where you can be real, especially when things are hard.
Safety is having people who’ve got you
Many of us described safety as coming from trusted relationships, friends, partners, mentors, and chosen family. Sometimes family is supportive, and sometimes it is not. When it is not, safety can mean having even one person who believes you, checks in, and helps you feel less alone.
Safety is also privacy and choice
For some, safety means staying in the closet, by choice, to protect relationships and keep harmony in the family. Safety includes the right to decide if, when, and how you share your identity. There is no single correct way to live openly.
Safety depends on where you are and who is around
A place can feel safe one day and unsafe the next. Home can be a refuge, and it can also become unsafe if relationships change. Workplaces can look inclusive but still feel very white or risky if racism and queerphobia are not addressed. Public spaces can feel fine in the daytime but unsafe at night, especially when you are on your own.
Safety is having control over getting home
Some of us manage safety through transport: not going out at night, avoiding public transport after dark, or driving so we can leave when we need to. Being able to move freely is part of safety, and not everyone has the same access to that freedom.
Safety is a cultural and spiritual belonging without punishment
Safety includes being South Asian and queer without having to split yourself in half. For some, faith is a source of conflict. For others, it is a source of hope, especially when we find queer-affirming spiritual spaces where we can see a future for ourselves.
Safety is being believed and supported when something goes wrong
Some of us have felt dismissed by services or unheard by professionals. Safety includes being taken seriously by healthcare providers, counsellors, schools, and community leaders, without having to explain ourselves just to receive care.
Safety is being able to dream
Safety is not only about surviving. It is about being able to plan, hope, and imagine a life with love, care, stability, and joy.
In conclusion, these discussions show that safety for South Asian LGBTQIA+ people is shaped by the interplay of internal resilience and external protections. However, the burden currently falls too heavily on individuals to anticipate risk, manage stigma, and self-protect. Our study insights point towards prevention that is community-led, culturally grounded, explicitly anti-racist, and attentive to the everyday infrastructures of safety, including transport, workplaces, safer space agreements, trusted peer support, and services that listen without requiring people to translate themselves.
Internal Contributors to Safety
This section focuses on how participants made safety possible from the inside.
1. Self-awareness: recognising and managing emotions and triggers
Participants demonstrated strong self-awareness about what destabilises them and what restores them. They offered the clearest description of trigger recognition, such as tension, shouting, loud noises producing immediate unsafety. They also described being “on a very high alert” while “gauging” whether a space is safe, and actively managing internal systems to create safety within an external context.
2. Coping skills: resilience strategies used in real time
Coping often took practical, embodied forms such as purposeful stimming, fidgeting, going on the phone in public, and using home as a place to freely regulate. Event coping included leaving early and staying in contact with friends while navigating community spaces. Dating safety involved taking one’s own vehicle and planning for exit and autonomy. Notably, earlier coping sometimes included numbing (substances) in unsafe environments, later shifting towards boundaries, exit plans, and support.
3. Self-esteem: building confidence amidst discrimination
Participants described confidence as something developed over time often through surviving unsafe environments and learning what they need. Some participants contrasted earlier numbing with later confidence to leave events or not participate, and to rely on friends for grounding. Some participants articulated self-respect in their ask, such as not “sympathy”, not “instant acceptance”, but being listened to.
4. Social connections: safety through chosen family, friends, and intergenerational ties
Across stories, social connection emerged as a core protective factor, such as friends as “biggest support”, ongoing contact during risky events, and chosen family structures. Some framed safety through wife (in same-sex marriages), home, and controlled access to family. Some described intergenerational safety-building with nieces and nephews and becoming a trusted adult. Some highlighted the significance of being supported by a “POC woman” youth worker as a “first safe space”.
5. Mental health: anxiety, depression, and barriers to care
Participants described anxiety as a persistent feature of unsafe contexts (“things can go south”) and the burden of constant vigilance. Some pointed to cultural taboo, cost, and survival pressures as barriers: mental health is “taboo”, therapy “expensive”, and migration obligations leave people “busy surviving life”. Participants also raised concerns about the mismatch of mainstream therapeutic responses and the need for tailored trauma-informed care (“what about trauma and trauma-informed in the context of South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities?”).
6. Cultural identity: balancing pride with the pain of cultural rejection
Participants sought to hold culture without losing themselves. Some showed cultural repair through recreating space that “feels like my childhood” while being safe to be queer. Some illustrated the pain of “two worlds” as a practising Muslim navigating visibility as risk at community events. These accounts underscore that cultural identity is not the problem; the problem is the conditions under which culture becomes conditional on silence, invisibility, or compliance.
Challenges and implications
Study participants described safety as something that must often be consciously created rather than assumed. Their stories show that vulnerability is not created by identity alone. It is produced through the interaction of family dynamics, community surveillance, racism and Islamophobia, service-system failures, and the practical realities of money, housing, and support networks. The challenges below are presented as interconnected conditions that shape everyday risk and constrain help-seeking, alongside the implications for prevention in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Fear of homelessness
Housing insecurity becomes a multiplier of harm. It erodes psychological safety, limits privacy, increases exposure to exploitation, and can push people towards risky coping and isolation. However, timely, culturally safe support can intervene meaningfully.
Being groomed by teachers
A particularly distressing challenge described by participants was grooming and boundary violations within educational settings, spaces that are meant to protect young people.
Safeguarding must include robust professional boundaries, clear oversight of one-to-one interactions, and pathways for reporting that are safe for queer students, particularly those who cannot rely on family advocacy. Schools also need queer-affirming pastoral support that does not hinge on a single adult, because isolation makes grooming easier and reporting harder.
Not being heard by General Health and Mental Health Professionals
Participants repeatedly described feeling dismissed, misunderstood, or burdened by having to educate health and mental health professionals about their lived realities.
Trust in health and mental health systems is undermined when care is culturally incompetent or dismissive. Prevention requires more than awareness. It requires sustained training in intersectional practice, anti-racism, and queer-affirming care, alongside accountability when harm occurs. It also supports investing in workforce diversity and culturally grounded modalities, so people are not forced to choose between invisibility and care.
Lack of family support
A recurring challenge was the absence of family tenderness and guidance, especially for younger participants navigating early questions about sexuality, gender, relationships, and safety.
Lack of family support can increase vulnerability, not only emotionally, but also materially, by shrinking the options available when harm occurs.
Family violence and sexual violence prevention for South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities must include culturally safe family education and community-based support that does not presume family will be protective. Prevention initiatives should also resource alternative support networks such as peer groups, chosen family spaces, and community advocates, so that young people are not left to “do that all myself.”
Living a double life
Participants described the pressure of living a double life as exhausting, isolating, and central to their safety planning.
Living a double life should be understood as a protective strategy within conditions of risk, not a personal deficiency. Prevention and support services should avoid equating wellbeing with full disclosure; for many, partial disclosure is harm reduction. Community resources should provide culturally sensitive guidance on navigating identity, disclosure, and safety without forcing people into unsafe visibility.
Unique vulnerabilities of intersectional identities
Intersectional marginalisation is often unacknowledged in public discourse that treats rainbow safety as universal. Prevention must explicitly address structural racism and Islamophobia and support anti-racist practice within LGBTQIA+ spaces, workplaces, and services. Otherwise, “inclusion” remains conditional, and the burden of adaptation stays on those most marginalised.
Recommendations Made by Our Participants
Workforce
In the workforce, enforceable inclusive policies, anti-racism and LGBTQIA+ competency training, and accountability pathways that protect staff from retaliation or career harm.
Health Sector
In the health sector, provide intersectional clinical training, service accountability, culturally safe referral pathways, and representation (including therapists of colour).
Community-Led
Community-led safety initiatives, anti-discrimination practice in enforcement and public services, and public messaging that recognises intersectional risk in the public transportation sector
Housing
Supportive housing pathways for LGBTQIA+ people (including culturally safe options), early intervention through health and community services, and protections against discrimination.
Education
Safeguarding and boundary enforcement, inclusive curricula, and queer-affirming support that does not isolate students or rely on single adults in educational institutions.
Online
Safer online community norms, robust reporting tools, and digital safety resources tailored to diaspora surveillance dynamics.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, the above-mentioned challenges deepen our understanding of the layered vulnerabilities and the equally layered resilience of South Asian LGBTQIA+ individuals in Aotearoa. The stories show that homelessness, family rejection, systemic racism, and intersectional discrimination are not isolated issues. They operate together to shape what safety looks like, what support is reachable, and what people must carry alone.
At the same time, participants also identify what helps, including culturally safe support workers, trusted friends and chosen family, intentional safer spaces, and the hard-earned skill of navigating risk without losing oneself. Addressing these challenges through culturally responsive, community-driven strategies is not only a matter of inclusion. It is a concrete pathway towards a society where safety is accessible and meaningful for all, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, class, language, religion, or faith.
Implications for Policy and Practice
Findings of our study suggest that safety for South Asian LGBTQIA+ people in Aotearoa is not secured by any single intervention. Instead, safety is produced (or undermined) through the interaction of family dynamics, public and institutional environments, racism and Islamophobia, and the availability of culturally competent supports. Participants repeatedly described making safety work through personal strategies, such as staying closeted for family harmony, limiting night-time travel, curating online visibility, carefully selecting workplaces or social settings, and relying on a small circle of trusted people. These adaptations reflect resilience, but they also indicate where systems are currently failing to provide baseline protection.
Policy and practice implications
Targeted support for LGBTQIA+ youth experiencing familial rejection
Expand access to affirming, youth-focused supports that are culturally informed (including peer mentors and trusted adults who understand diaspora dynamics).
Ensure these services can respond to practical risk (housing, money, transport, safety planning), not only emotional distress.
Build referral pathways from schools, primary care, and community organisations that are safe for young people who may be closeted.
Strengthening safeguarding and duty-of-care in education (schools and tertiary settings)
Strengthen and enforce clear safeguarding standards for one-to-one contact, “special access”, and staff conduct.
Ensure students have multiple reporting routes (including anonymous, culturally safe options) and that reporting does not expose them to further harm.
Provide training that recognises how queer visibility and marginalisation can increase vulnerability to adult exploitation.
Closing gaps in healthcare and mental health support
Embed intersectional and cultural competence as core clinical practice (not optional training), including specific capability around racism, faith stigma, sexuality/gender diversity, and migration stressors.
Increase access to practitioners who can deliver culturally safe care without requiring clients to do the interpretive labour (including pathways to therapists of colour where preferred).
Treat trauma-informed practice as essential, especially given participants’ descriptions of body-based unsafety even in “peaceful” environments.
Reducing the risk of homelessness through protection and tailored housing support
Strengthen legal protections against housing discrimination and ensure enforcement mechanisms are accessible.
Develop culturally safe, LGBTQIA+ affirming housing supports that do not assume family mediation is possible or desired.
Formalise early intervention pathways (for instance, GP → youth/housing support) that can respond before crisis escalates.
Addressing othering, racism, and Islamophobia as safety issues
Treat anti-racism and anti-Islamophobia as core to violence prevention for Rainbow communities, not ancillary.
Resource community-led, intersectional spaces with clear agreements and accountability, which participants identified as protective.
Amplify marginalised voices in public discourse to counter the erasure that sustains stigma and isolation.
Designing for compounded marginalisation
Design programmes and services for compound risk (race + gender + sexuality + faith + migration), not single-axis categories.
Ensure “safe” initiatives do not inadvertently create new risks for those with the least social protection.
This study underscores the dynamic, multifaceted nature of safety for South Asian LGBTQIA+ communities in Aotearoa. Participants’ accounts show that safety is shaped by more than immediate physical risk. It is also produced through belonging, confidentiality, cultural legitimacy, bodily calm, and the ability to plan a future. As participants expressed, safety can include the right to speak without fear and to hold future plans as part of wellbeing.
The interviews also make visible the structural conditions that constrain safety, such as conditional family acceptance, risk of homelessness, othering in public and professional life, culturally mismatched healthcare, and breaches of trust in educational settings. These harms are compounded for those living at multiple intersections, such as race, faith, gender, sexuality, and migration history, where a space may feel safe for one part of the self and unsafe for another.
A key implication is that prevention must be both community-led and system-facing. Participants are already practising prevention through everyday strategies, such as selective disclosure, careful mobility, and choosing spaces deliberately. However, these strategies should not be the sole line of defence. Addressing safety requires integrated action: culturally responsive services, enforceable protections in workplaces and housing, robust safeguarding in education, public safety initiatives that recognise intersectional risk, and resourced community spaces that allow people to belong without shrinking.
The next phase of this work can build on these foundations by expanding the participant base and co-developing actionable policy recommendations with community stakeholders. In doing so, the goal is not only to reduce harm, but to increase the conditions in which South Asian LGBTQIA+ people can live with dignity, connection, rights, and freedom.
Gentle Reminder
You deserve safety that doesn’t require you to disappear. If you’re reading this and thinking, this is me, you’re not alone and your strategies make sense.
If you are in immediate danger, please call 111. If you’re not in immediate danger but want support, consider reaching out to a trusted person or a culturally safe LGBTQIA+ service. More information available on our resource called Spectrum of Colour.
The information provided here is for general awareness and support only. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a qualified health, legal, or medical professional. If you are in immediate danger, please contact emergency services or a trusted support service right away.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the participants in this research project. You all graciously gave us your time, your knowledge and, given the emotionally taxing nature of this research, your emotion. We do not take these offerings, or the trust you place in us, lightly. We have used (and will continue to use) your contributions to create meaningful and tangible changes in our communities. Family and sexual violence in people of colour LGBTQIA+ communities (as in any community) is a scourge, and through your generosity, we challenge it collectively.
We acknowledge LGBTQIA+ people of colour, especially South Asians, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our communities are communities of strength, love, care, and humility. We share our joint struggles and work for a future where we can all be our authentic selves.
We acknowledge the supporters of this research, including those who provided us with professional supervision.
We acknowledge the tangata whenua of Aotearoa, iwi Māori. In particular, we acknowledge Waikato Tainui, on whose land most interviews were conducted virtually, and for whose history of resistance and fortitude we hold deep appreciation. It is not lost on us that we are only here because of your magnanimity. We will always be allies to the cause of the realisation of te Tiriti o Waitangi.
We acknowledge the funder of this research, the Ministry of Social Development. The Ministry funded this project through the Ethnic Communities Innovation Fund which we were honoured to be a recipient of.
Citation
Bal, V. & Divakalala, C. (2026). “Notions of Safety”: Preventing Family and Sexual Violence in South Asian LGBTQIA+ Communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. Adhikaar Aotearoa.
