#10 Preparing for the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Code: Intersectionality in Practice

This article is the tenth instalment in a 12-part series supporting institutions to prepare for the proposed National Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education.

Students’ experiences of gender-based violence are shaped by who they are, where they live, their past experiences, their relationship with institutions, and how others perceive them.

For example:

• First Nations students may carry justified distrust of authority and systems, shaped by histories of violence, over-surveillance and intergenerational trauma.

• International students may fear visa impacts, struggle with language or cultural barriers, or not understand how to access support.

• LGBTQIA+ students may face outing, lack of affirming services, or have experiences that are minimised because they don’t match dominant narratives.

• Students with disability may experience overlapping vulnerabilities — especially where dependency, communication access, or institutional neglect is involved.

And many students sit at multiple of these intersections at once.

For leaders and decision-makers:

• Embed intersectionality in strategy: Many services provide “individualised” support. But how do your systems reflect different identities? Are your risk assessments culturally responsive? Are your prevention campaigns inclusive in imagery and language? Does your data collection include disaggregated insights to show who is accessing support?

  
  

• Partner beyond the institution: Build relationships with First Nations community organisations, multicultural and international student support agencies, LGBTQIA+ health and wellbeing services and disability advocacy groups.

  
  

• Fund the work: Inclusive practice takes time, training, and cultural translation. It’s not free and expecting existing staff to absorb it without support will lead to burnout and gaps. Allocate funding to community partnerships, inclusive training design, interpreters, accessible materials, and student-led co-design.

For practitioners leading the work:  

• Move beyond ‘one size fits most’ training: Your consent education module isn’t reaching everyone if it only depicts heterosexual couples, it assumes students live at home with family or it uses dense, inaccessible language. Design tailored versions and test them with the communities they’re intended for.

  
  

• Build inclusive support pathways: This might look like training peer leaders from diverse communities to act as first contacts, creating referral options outside the university for students with low trust in institutions and offering anonymous reporting options for students at high risk of being outed or harmed.

Quick wins:

• Audit all GBV materials (policies, posters, websites) for language, assumptions, and imagery

• Offer options for interpreter or cultural liaison at disclosure stage

• Partner with equity and diversity offices to align work across student and staff communities

• Translate key resources into top spoken languages across your student cohort

Interested to learn more? Read the rest of our series: Raising the Standard: A Practical Blog Series on Preventing GBV in Higher Education