The Gilded Margin

Heart Day | October — Domestic Violence Awareness Month| Gilded Margin

Behind every statistic is a person. Behind every purple ribbon is a reason we cannot afford to stop paying attention.

Every October, purple appears on shirts, ribbons, social media profiles, storefronts, and community displays. Organizations share resources. Advocates speak out. Survivors tell their stories, when they feel safe enough to do so.

For a moment, a subject that is often hidden behind closed doors becomes visible.

But what happens when October ends?

What happens when the purple comes down, the awareness posts stop appearing in our feeds, and the world returns to its usual routines?

Domestic violence does not operate on a calendar. Neither does the work of helping someone find safety, rebuilding a life after abuse, or remembering someone whose life was taken by a person who claimed to love them.

This month is not simply about wearing a color. It is about remembering why that color matters, understanding what the data tells us, and deciding what we are willing to do with that knowledge.

The numbers behind the stories: Texas, 2023–2025

The Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV) publishes an annual report called Honoring Texas Victims. It documents intimate-partner fatalities, shares information about the people who died, and examines circumstances and risk factors that may help communities prevent future deaths.

The most recent three reports document the following:

Year of deaths| Texans killed by IPV

2023| 205

2024| 161

2025| 160

Source: Texas Council on Family Violence, Honoring Texas Victims reports for 2023, 2024, and 2025. Read the reports.

The reports document 45 Texas counties experiencing at least one intimate-partner homicide in 2025, compared with 42 counties in the 2024 report. The 2025 report also recorded 15 additional deaths of family members, friends, or bystanders during intimate-partner homicides. These are people whose lives were also lost in the violence.

Sources: TCFV’s 2024 fact sheet and 2025 fact sheet.

There is a temptation to look at 205, then 161, then 160 and conclude that the problem is being solved.

We need to be more careful than that. Annual reports can differ in case inclusion, investigative status, and methodology, so these figures should not automatically be treated as a perfectly comparable trend line. The numbers represent documented fatalities under each report’s parameters, not every death connected to domestic violence and certainly not every person experiencing abuse.

Even with that qualification, the most recent reports leave us with a sobering reality: intimate-partner violence continues to take lives in Texas every year.

And a fatality count tells us only one part of the story.

It does not count every person who has been threatened, isolated, stalked, controlled financially, assaulted, or made to feel unsafe in their own home. It does not capture every child who has witnessed abuse or every family trying to help someone leave a dangerous situation.

It cannot measure the fear involved in making a safety plan, the difficulty of finding housing, or the courage it can take to ask someone for help.

The numbers matter because they document the scale of the problem. The stories matter because they remind us what those numbers represent.

The people behind the report

The name Honoring Texas Victims is important.

These reports are not simply annual collections of statistics. They are an effort to document lives lost and preserve the stories of people who were more than the circumstances of their deaths.

They were friends, parents, siblings, coworkers, partners, and neighbors. They had histories, relationships, personalities, and futures that cannot be reduced to a number in a table.

The reports also remind us that domestic violence is not confined to one demographic. The 2025 report documented the deaths of 136 women and 24 men. It also identified victims killed in LGBTQIA+ relationships.

Violence does not become less serious because the victim does not fit someone else’s assumptions about who experiences abuse.

And the people who die are not the only ones affected.

Children may lose a parent. Families may lose a loved one. Friends and bystanders can be caught in the violence. Entire communities can carry the effects of a death long after the immediate investigation ends.

When we talk about domestic violence, we need to make room for all of those realities.

We also need to remember that people who survive abuse deserve more than recognition for their strength. They deserve access to safety, support, resources, and the freedom to make decisions about their own lives.

The Day of Unity: Where Domestic Violence Awareness Month began

Before Domestic Violence Awareness Month became a nationwide October observance, there was the Day of Unity.

In October 1981, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence conceived the Day of Unity to bring together advocates working to end violence against women and their children. The goal was to connect people and organizations that were often doing difficult work in separate communities, creating a shared movement out of many individual efforts.

The observance soon grew into a week of activities. Those activities shared three central purposes:

• Mourning people who had died because of domestic violence.
• Celebrating people who had survived.
• Connecting advocates and communities working to end abuse.

In October 1987, the first Domestic Violence Awareness Month was observed. That same year saw the establishment of the first national domestic violence toll-free hotline. In 1989, Congress designated October as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month through Public Law 101-112. Source: Texas Council on Family Violence, Domestic Violence Awareness history.

The Day of Unity is now observed on the first Monday in October. In 2026, that date was October 5.

The history matters because the movement did not begin with a marketing campaign or a social media hashtag. It began with people recognizing that isolation was part of the problem—and that connection could be part of the response.

The Day of Unity asks us to remember that preventing domestic violence is not the responsibility of one advocate, one police department, one shelter, or one survivor.

It is work that requires people and institutions to come together.

Why purple?

Purple has become one of the most recognizable symbols of domestic violence awareness. But it represents more than a seasonal color choice.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence selected purple for the original Day of Unity in 1981. Its use also connects with earlier women’s-rights activism, including the purple and lavender colors used in women’s rights demonstrations. Purple became a visible way to express solidarity with people affected by domestic violence and with those working to end it. Source: Center for the Abused Women’s and Families’ history of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Today, wearing purple is a way to make support visible. It can open a conversation, signal solidarity, and remind someone that their experience is not something they must face alone.

But a ribbon cannot make someone safe by itself.

A purple shirt cannot replace a shelter bed, a safety plan, a trained advocate, or a community prepared to respond without judgment.

The color is a symbol. What we do with the message is what gives that symbol meaning.

Awareness must become action

Domestic violence awareness is not only about recognizing physical violence. Abuse can also involve coercion, intimidation, isolation, financial control, stalking, threats, and other patterns intended to exercise power over another person.

A relationship does not have to leave visible injuries for someone to be experiencing abuse.

Sometimes the signs are subtle to outsiders. Someone may withdraw from friends. They may seem unusually anxious about upsetting a partner. They may lose access to money or transportation. They may repeatedly change plans because someone else controls their decisions.

No single behavior proves that abuse is occurring. But patterns of control, fear, and intimidation deserve to be taken seriously.

What can we do?

• Listen without judgment. If someone tells you they are being abused, resist the urge to question why they stayed, why they returned, or why they did not report it sooner.
• Offer support without taking control. A survivor may face risks that are not visible to you. Ask what would be helpful, respect their choices, and avoid confronting an abusive person in a way that could increase danger.
• Learn about local resources. Understand what victim advocates, family violence centers, emergency shelters, and legal services can provide. Share accurate information rather than assuming every survivor has the same options.
• Support the organizations doing the work. Consider donating, volunteering where appropriate, sharing reputable resources, or helping local programs reach more people.
• Take threats and patterns of escalating violence seriously. Stalking, threats to kill, strangulation, access to firearms, and violence around separation can be important indicators of danger. If someone is at immediate risk, contact emergency services when safe to do so.

And remember: the person experiencing abuse is not responsible for making the abuser stop. Responsibility belongs to the person choosing to use violence and coercion.

The part we cannot leave to survivors alone

We often praise survivors for being strong.

There is nothing wrong with recognizing courage. But we should be careful not to make strength a requirement for receiving help.

A person should not have to tell their story perfectly, leave on a timeline that makes sense to outsiders, or demonstrate extraordinary resilience before a community decides they are worth supporting.

Safety should not depend on how convincing someone appears to be.

This is where our systems matter.

Victim advocates, law enforcement, medical professionals, courts, counselors, employers, friends, and family members may all become part of someone’s experience of seeking help. The response they receive can influence whether they feel believed, whether they understand their options, and whether they are able to access support.

No single professional or organization can guarantee an outcome. But every interaction is an opportunity to provide clear information, preserve dignity, and avoid adding unnecessary barriers.

Awareness should lead us to ask harder questions about whether services are accessible, whether communities have adequate resources, and whether the people most at risk can actually reach the help being advertised.

If we say survivors matter, that belief needs to exist in our practices, our policies, our funding decisions, and our everyday conversations.

Remembering, honoring, and moving forward

Domestic Violence Awareness Month holds space for grief and hope at the same time.

We remember the people who did not survive. We honor the people who have survived and continue rebuilding their lives. We recognize the advocates and community members who work to make safety more accessible.

And we acknowledge that awareness alone is not the finish line.

The Day of Unity began with the idea that people working toward the same purpose should not have to work alone. Purple became a visible symbol of that shared commitment.

More than four decades later, those ideas remain relevant.

We need communities willing to talk honestly about abuse. We need systems prepared to respond. We need resources that meet people where they are. We need to recognize that survivors’ experiences are diverse and that support must be guided by their safety and choices.

And we need to keep doing this work after the ribbons are put away.

Because every statistic represents a life, every survivor deserves dignity, and every community has a role in creating safer relationships and homes.

This October, let’s make the purple mean something.

Wear it. Share the history. Learn the warning signs. Support local victim services. Listen when someone trusts you with their story.

And when October ends, keep showing up.

Awareness begins with seeing the problem. Unity begins when we decide we will not look away. Action is how we turn that commitment into something real.

Each story matters, and every voice contributes to the movement for safety and respect.

Resources and further reading

• Texas Council on Family Violence — Honoring Texas Victims reports
• Texas Council on Family Violence — Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Day of Unity history
• National Domestic Violence Hotline — Call 800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or use the online chat. If a device may be monitored, consider accessing help from a safer device.
• In an immediate emergency in the United States, call 911 if it is safe to do so.