Victoria's family violence royal commission has heard that about one in three lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Australians has been in an abusive relationship.

Dr Philomena Horsley from La Trobe University has also told the commission there are few family violence services tailored to the community's needs.

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Melbourne man Russell ended his marriage and came out as a gay man 15 years ago.

"I'd met this fellow, we got into a relationship," he said.

"I think I experienced my first broken bone within the first six or seven months, that was a broken nose after a dinner party."

Russell said he stayed in the violent relationship for four-and-a-half years and was reluctant to tell anyone about what was going on at home.

"I had come out to everybody, I had told everybody that this was the right thing for me," he said.

"My fear was that people would have then gone, 'see, we told you so, you should never have done that'.

"It would be like coming out of the closet a second time."

Russell said he did eventually phone a family violence counselling service to get help.

"Their response to me was, 'are you OK?' Well yes, I'm OK. 'Good, what you'll need to do is you'll need to get him to phone us'.

"I sort of think that it was probably a mainstream service and they actually didn't have any idea what to do about a fellow phoning about another fellow."

LGBTI people lack family violence services

Latrobe University researcher Dr Philomena Horsley gave evidence to Victoria's family violence royal commission today.

She said Russell's situation was not unusual.

"We know from the very limited research we've done, both the state research and national research, that it is at least the same if not higher than among heterosexual couples in Australia," she said.

"So that's one in three couples have told us that they have had an experience of being in an abusive same-sex relationship."

Dr Horsley said members of the LGBTI community sometimes do not realise they are suffering family violence.

"We hear stories where abusive partners have said to their partners,' oh, this isn't violence, this is just what happens in a relationship when two men get together'.

"Or one woman is saying to her partner, 'women can't be violent, this is just part of what it is like being in a gay relationship'.

"And of course it isn't, but if you're in that context where all of the community, prevention educations, and all of the publicity and all of the media is only talking about heterosexual couples, you just don't see your experience mirrored in those kinds of conversations."

Dr Horsley's submission to Victoria's royal commission makes a number of recommendations, including the better education of police and magistrates on family violence in the LGBTI community, more inclusive family violence services, and prevention and awareness campaigns.

Parents and siblings can be a source of violence

Dr Horsley goes further, pointing out that gay, lesbian and transgender people do not only suffer from family violence at the hands of their partners.

"One of our research projects, we had a young man Peter — 15 years of age — who said he told his parents he was gay and he said, 'I was locked in a room, I was physically and mentally abused and they said either kill yourself or we'll kill you'.

"And we certainly have other young people who have said they've had their jaws broken, they've been physically assaults by their parents or by their siblings when they've come out as gay or lesbian or trans.

"And we certainly know from our research that there's a far great proportion of young people who are homeless on the streets of Melbourne because of homophobia in the family, needing to leave home in order to be safe or being thrown out of home by parents."

If you or someone you know is suffering from family violence, please call 1800RESPECT.