This theoretical and policy analysis examined how heterosexuality and heteronormativity are treated—or ignored—in Australian family, domestic, and sexual violence (FDSV) policy, specifically conducting a close reading of two national frameworks: *Change the Story* (Our Watch, 2021) and the *National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032*.
Both policy frameworks acknowledge heteronormativity only as a harm affecting LGBTQ+ people, while leaving heterosexuality itself unexamined as a structural force. Heterosexual people—especially women—are framed solely through gender, not sexuality, obscuring how heteronormative scripts (male dominance, female passivity, compulsory family structures) actively produce and sustain FDSV.
- The analysis is limited to two Australian policy documents; findings may not map directly onto other national contexts, though authors argue the critique is broadly applicable. - As a theoretical/policy analysis with no primary data, the causal claims about heteronormativity's role in FDSV remain conceptual rather than empirically tested. - Authors acknowledge their own positionality as white scholars shapes the analysis, and that cisnormativity—a closely related system—is left for future work.
FDSV practitioners and policymakers should explicitly name heteronormativity as a driver of gendered violence for all people—not only LGBTQ+ communities—and integrate structural critiques of heterosexual norms (e.g., male entitlement, rigid sexual scripts, coercive relational expectations) into prevention frameworks alongside gender analysis.
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