Pima County designates advocate to support LGBTQ+ sexual-assault survivors | Crime and courts

In addition to that increased risk, members of the LGBTQ+ community face a number of other challenges to reporting sexual assault, including not seeing the law enforcement agency as being reflective of their community.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community have difficulty accessing services following a sexual assault for a variety of reasons, including unpleasant experiences in the past, a system that is largely designed for heterosexual people, and the fear for some of outing themselves, she said.

“Transgender or gender nonconforming are at higher risk than any other portion of population and less likely to seek support from traditional sources because they have been failed in the past,” Phelan said.

It helps to demonstrate that even if a government agency hasn’t gotten it right in the past or all of the time, they’re trying.

That’s where Blue Norush comes into play.

Norush recently joined the county attorney’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative team as its queer-identifying advocate, working to bridge the gap between survivors and the system.

Norush, who uses the pronoun they, started working as a volunteer victim advocate at the prosecuting office in 2014, then joined the staff for a few years. They took a break to go back to school, while still working as a victim advocate with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and recently returned to the county attorney’s office.