Placing Queer Voices at the Center of Methods: A Composite Character Approach for Representing LGBTQIASB + Lived Experiences of Violence

Abstract Purpose Queer narratives of intimate partner, family and sexual violence often remain siloed within queer communities rather than reaching mainstream discourse. Existing heteronormative research methods have failed to capture the nuance of queer experiences of such violence and the result is an absence of public and institutional understandings. We suggest an alternative, strengths-based and queer-led narrative method of developing a composite character to show the complexity of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Sistergirl, Brotherboy (LGBTQIASB +) lived experiences of violence whilst protecting individuals’ identities. Methods The story of our composite character Bec is told through a series of short vignettes, drawn from the lived experience of two of the authors. This method is informed by embodied feminist theory, queer oral history, and feminist storytelling. The step-by-step process we used to facilitate this method included partnering with a queer ally and advocate, providing authors a safe and trusting space for writing the composite character, and then ground-truthing it with close queer peers. Results The composite character approach combines real experiences into fictional characters to safely share stories of violence without risking participants’ mental health or causing re-traumatization. The deeper insight into queer lived experiences of violence afforded by this method creates rich and nuanced understandings with potential to inform research and practice. Moreover, this method has potential cathartic capacity for a survivor of violence to process the violence at a distance and to better view their journey of recovery. Conclusions National family violence policy and prevention frameworks have consistently ignored, glossed over, or subsumed queer stories within heteronormative lived experience accounts. The composite method contributes an ethical framework with potential to inform policy development, raise community awareness about LGBTQIASB + experiences of intimate partner and family violence, and strengthen queer-appropriate support services.