THIS year\u2019s Bendigo Pride Festival will include a unique look into family and gendered violence faced by LGBTQIA+ communities.<\/p>\n
A one-man show from Russ Vickery called My Other Closet, the Cabaret<\/em> will take place on Sunday, 20 March from 5pm to 7pm at the Engine Room on View Street.<\/p>\n The show aims to dispel the myth that intimate part violence does not occur in LGBTQ relationships through Vickery\u2019s first-hand recount as a domestic violence survivor.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first I couldn\u2019t comprehend what was happening. It was so unexpected. It took some time for me to realise that this was abusive, this was manipulative. And unfortunately, this is a common experience for LGBTQ survivors,\u201d Vickery said.<\/p>\n Vickery, a father of three in his 50s, takes the audience through a journey of his life, beginning in gay nightclubs in Melbourne in the 1970s, through a 17-year heterosexual marriage, to coming out, to entering his first same gender relationship, in which he suffered physical and emotional abuse.<\/p>\n