Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: I do work with people who apply for orders for protection or harassment orders, which is a civil legal protection. I'm sure you're aware of what it does. It keeps people out of the home or out of their place of work. And so sometimes they're willing to look at civil remedies.

We do a lot of talking about treatment or counseling. Sometimes they call looking for places that either they can go to talk about the abuse that's happening to them, or they're looking for a place that the abusive partner can go to get some treatment for their issues around anger and abuse.

SPEAKER 2: Do you get a sense of whether the situation of domestic abuse in same-sex relationships is any worse or any better in the Twin Cities and in Minnesota than in the entire country?

SPEAKER 1: It does not get enough attention from the general community, from society as a whole. But what is nice is that in Minnesota, it does, I think, get more attention than it does in some communities where it's just very difficult to be out in any way, shape, or form, and where domestic violence as an issue is not addressed. And what we are lucky to have in Minnesota is not only a place where it is relatively safer to be out, but also a state that has taken domestic violence on as an issue.