Why Don’t We Talk About Abuse in Queer Relationships?

In this deeply personal and long-overdue episode, we unpack the silences, scripts, and systems that shape how we understand abuse, and how they fail queer people in particular.

Aiwan opens up for the first time about her experience of domestic violence in a same-sex relationship, and what made it so hard to recognise or name. 

Tamanda reflects on a coercive relationship marked by gaslighting, manipulation, and lies, including a fabricated cancer diagnosis, and how it warped her sense of reality. 

Together, they explore the red flags they missed, the stories they inherited, and why patriarchy still shapes which kinds of harm we’re taught to see… even within queer relationships.

From Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House to The Queer Ultimatum, from silence in Black and religious communities to the glaring gaps of the archive, the creative industries and the research sector, this episode makes space for stories that are too often erased or distorted, and asks what it would take to name abuse on our own terms.

In this episode:

• Why emotional and psychological abuse often go unrecognised
• How coercive control plays out in queer and same-sex relationships
• Power, silence, and what stops us from speaking up, especially in minoritised communities
• The difference between conflict and control, dysfunction and abuse
• The role of shame, identity, and isolation in keeping people stuck
• What research, archives, and media still get wrong about queer survivors
• How patriarchy shows up, even in supposedly liberated relationships

For those who want to go deeper, we’re dropping a bonus episode this Thursday 10th July, diving deeper into the research, data, and structures behind queer domestic violence and coercive control.

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