Walk A Mile - YOUR Style
YOUR Walk. YOUR People. YOUR Support. YOUR Impact.
- Gather your family, friends, coworkers, and employees and walk in the community, decked out in pink, to end gender-based violence in Niagara.
- Register your walk on a “virtual” map.
- Teams are encouraged to help spread awareness about gender-based violence and compete for the best pink-decorated house/business in October.
Event Details
- Saturday October 16, 2021
- A virtual community walk
- 11:30 am
- Opening ceremonies via Facebook Live - 12:00 pm
- Teams take to the streets to Walk a Mile - 1:00 pm
- Closing ceremonies via Facebook Live
GBV in GSD Communities
Gender-based and intimate partner violence manifest through a variety of tactics that are not typically experienced by those who are cisgender and heterosexual.
The scope of abusive tactics widens significantly for GSD community members due, in part, to social and legal stigma around being GSD, including tactics that take advantage of an individual’s gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
Some of the most prevalence abuse tactics experienced by GSD individuals include:
Forcing a victim to hide their trans or sexual minority status from others by overtly demanding or pressuring the victim to remain quiet about their status.
The opposite of closeting. Disclosing a victim’s trans or sexual minority status to others, either directly by telling people or indirectly by forcing the victim to show public signs of affection, such as hand holding and kissing.
Threats to out the victim’s trans or sexual minority status; threats against the victim or victim’s family; and threats of self-harm or suicide.
Abusers may use a victim’s marginalized social status to control or shame them. Using a transgender person’s deadname (birth name) or former pronouns without permission.
Stopping victims from treatment needed to express their gender identity, such as through withholding financial support or requesting repayment through illegal or undesirable acts. This can also include hiding or disposing of medications that are needed to express an individual’s gender identity.
- Accusing a victim of not being lesbian, gay, or bisexual enough;
- Telling a bisexual victim they are not a “real” sexual minority; and/or
- Accusing a sexual minority victim of making the abuser a sexual minority.
~ The Canadian Centre for Gender + Sexual Diversity 2017, p. 9
Power and Control Wheel:
The Power and Control Wheel or Duluth Model has long been used to explain various tactics of coercion and control to victims of violence in cisgender heterosexual relationships. We know that GSD people face distinct forms of gender-based violence, and The Power and Control Wheel, as adapted by Roe and Jagodinsky provides more specific information and examples about how that violence is experienced and the types of tactics that might be used to coerce and control a victim.
FORGE has also developed a chart that describes tactics of gender-based violence used against trans partners as well as tactics used by trans partners.