Gender-based violence faced by LGBTQIA+ communities will be in the spotlight through two events at the Bendigo Pride Festival.
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One-man show My Other Closet the Cabaret works to awareness of family violence in LGBTQIA+ relationships will go ahead on March 20 while a training day titled The Dark Side of the Rainbow will take place on March 18.
The training day hopes to give the region's service providers with a chance to learn how to better support LGBTQIA+ people experiencing domestic and family violence.
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My Other Closet the Cabaret was developed by Matthew Parsons and Russell Vickery over a year in 2012 and has toured Australia. The show has run each year since performances at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 2014.
It follows Mr Vickery's journey as a violence survivor of violence in a same-gender relationship.
"Initially we marketed this as one man's experience of same sex domestic violence, that was the purpose of the exercise because when I was going through it I didn't have a name for it," Mr Vickery said. "So everything was marketed to LGBTIQA+ and (in Sydney) we (noticed) a lot of women in the audience."
After speaking with audience members, Mr Vickery and Mx Parsons became aware of the similarities that were in all types of relationships.
"We stopped promoting to a particular group and it's more come one, come all now," Mr Vickery said.
Mr Vickery said it took him 10 years to feel healed enough to tell his story on stage. He said the show is full of intense emotions that he couldn't face if he didn't feel he had healed.
"For it to be effective and to tell the story, you have to take yourself back to those places so the audience is seeing those legitimate feelings," he said. "That's where this show wins. I'm not a trained trained actor or singer. I am a bloke telling his own story and I think there's a plus there because the performance is raw.
"From a performer's view - to get to that level of intense feeling for an audience, you couldn't do it if you weren't healed. It would destroy you."
Mr Vickery said Australia voting for marriage equality prepared the general population to let them know LGBTIQA+ communities we are out there.
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"Generally, I think people are quite accepting of LGBTIQA+ people," he said. "They just don't understand - which is why we have done the show - how much like their relationships our relationships are."
Mx Parsons said the issues of gendered-violence was still very under-discussed in the LGBTQIA+ community.
"For a long time our rights movement has been focused on marriage equality," they said. "The key point of (creating the show) was around being able to turn a negative experience into a positive one. It's a show about being able to move people emotionally more than what statistics, a poster or a brochure can provide."
Mx Parsons said Australia voting yes to marriage equality was not the end of LGBTQIA+ communities' fight for equality.
"It can particularly be a form of passive resistance to say 'you got marriage equality, wasn't that enough?'," they said. "We are not asking preferential treatment. We are just asking for equity.
"In the state of Victoria, yes, there has been a lot of progress made. It's still not at a place where it is equitable access for LGTBQIA+ people but (Victoria) is miles ahead of other states and territories."
For the full Bendgo Pride Festival program visit bendigopridefestival.com.au
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