Home is where our story begins: CALD LGBTIQ+ people’s relationships to family

There is a lacuna in the research about LGBTIQ+ people’s relationships to family, and in particular, their experiences of family violence and how these experiences vary for people who also identify as culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD). In this paper, we explore the impact of the 2017 Australian Marriage Equality vote on CALD LGBTIQ+ people residing in Greater Western Sydney (GWS), which is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas of Australia, and where there was a significant ‘no’ vote. The 14-week campaign before the Marriage Equality vote resulted in significant social and individual trauma and damage to existing, fraught family relationships for LGBTIQ+ Australians (Ecker & Bennett, 2017). The findings from this research highlight that while CALD LGBTIQ+ people experience high levels of family violence at the time of coming out and during events such as the Marriage Equality vote, families are also an incredible source of support when CALD LGBTIQ+ are accepted by their families and wider communities. This paper documents the experiences of CALD LGBTIQ+ people’s relationships and reports on the findings from a survey with CALD LGBTIQ+ people in GWS.