John Diggs, who heads the department's family services bureau. None of the training is specific to same-gender assaults. Same-gender domestic violence, as in heterosexual assaults, involves one partner exercising power over the other. The aggressors use threats, manipulation and violence, advocates say. Same-gender assaults differ, they say, because the cases usually lack the size difference between partners and issues of economic dependence.
Police treat the cases the same.
For three years, another part of Strother's job has been to advise gays and lesbians that they can apply for orders of protection. In 1997, North Carolina changed the law to include language police and advocates say loosely allows recognition of gay and lesbian relationships under the domestic violence statute. The law identifies six relationships in which domestic violence laws, including protection orders, can be applied. Taylor said the law should be amended to more explicitly acknowledge same-gender domestic violence. That, she said, would ensure uniform availability of protective orders across the state.