Queer(y)ing Civil Law Responses to Domestic and Family Violence

<p><em>Queer(y)ing Civil Law Responses to Domestic and Family Violence </em>offers unique in-depth insights into the experiences of LGBTQ+ victim-survivors who have engaged with civil protection order systems.</p><p>Drawing on data from an Australian study following the experiences of LGBTQ+ victim-survivors of domestic and family violence who engaged with Victoria’s civil protection order system this book adopts a feminist queer and trans abolitionist perspective to challenge the assumption that the best response to LGBTQ+ domestic and family violence is a legal one. Problematising responses that fundamentally require increased investment in policing courts and prisons despite the risks this poses to marginalised individuals and communities this book centres queer criminology as a framework through which we can situate and critique the rigid victim/perpetrator binaries that are so characteristic of legal responses to violence. This same criminological framework also provides the tools and knowledge needed to envision an alternative community-oriented response to harm—within and beyond queer communities. In this way the book presents queer criminology not only as a way of understanding LGBTQ+ experiences but also as a means for analysing the broader shortcomings of a system that more often exacerbates risk of harm than minimises it.</p><p><em>Queer(y)ing Civil Law Responses to Domestic and Family Violence </em>will be useful for students and scholars of LGBTQ+ violence as well as a valuable resource for policy makers legal and specialist practitioners and advocates considering how best to respond to LGBTQ+ domestic and family violence.</p>