Imagine a Europe where no lesbian, bi woman or non-binary lesbian person has to swallow the violence they endure in order to survive it. Where gender-based violence is not filtered through heteronormative assumptions before it is believed. Where protection does not require erasure.
That is the ambition behind the European Commission’s Daphne-funded programme implemented by EL*C. In 2025, its first regranting cycle concluded: 21 projects across at least 12 countries, backed by more than € 800,000. The outcome was not simply a funding exercise, but a coordinated attempt to confront a stubborn truth – that violence against lesbians remains structurally overlooked, even within gender-equality frameworks that claim universality.
The programme’s focus is unapologetically intersectional. It addresses intimate partner violence, family rejection, workplace discrimination, medical gaslighting, online harassment, and institutional neglect. It strengthens survivor-centred services – therapy, legal assistance, emergency housing, and tailored hotlines. It builds evidence to challenge invisibility. It trains professionals, from police officers to social workers, to recognize lesbian-specific forms of harm. And it pushes structural reform through advocacy tied to European mechanisms, including the Istanbul Convention.
The results are concrete. Two hundred and fifty lesbians accessed psychological support. One hundred and twenty received legal consultations. Fifteen court cases were supported. Across contexts as varied as rural eastern Europe, western asylum systems and Balkan communities supporting Roma women, services expanded into spaces where none had previously existed.
Perhaps most significantly, the programme generated the largest LBTIQ-focused evidence base on gender-based violence in participating western Balkan and EU contexts: 600 survey respondents, 80 focus groups and interviews, policy briefs and shadow reports to CEDAW and GREVIO. Data exposed urban–rural divides, digital abuse patterns and shelter exclusions. It transformed testimony into policy leverage.
This is what happens when resources reach lesbian-led organisations. They do not dissipate. They multiply.
From emergency response to structural change
But the first cycle also exposed the scale of the challenge. Deep mistrust of police and state institutions persists. LBTIQ-inclusive services remain patchy at best. Rural, Roma, migrant and exiled lesbians face layered barriers that mainstream systems are still ill-equipped to dismantle.
Encouragingly, many women’s organisations signalled readiness to collaborate and learn. The opportunity now is not competition for shrinking funds, but alliance-building capable of reshaping national protection systems.
EL*C has already moved into its second regranting cycle. Across Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Italy and beyond, 31 projects have received more than € 1.1 m. Some will scale hotlines into national networks. Others will deepen cooperation with shelters and counselling centres, expand public campaigns or consolidate regional lesbian-centred alliances.
The question is no longer whether violence against lesbians* exists. The evidence is there. The services are taking root. The professionals are being trained.
The question is whether Europe is prepared to treat this work not as a niche add-on, but as core infrastructure for gender equality.
Breaking silence was the first step. Building durable systems of protection, funded, institutionalised and politically defended, is the test that lies ahead.
