Nicole Lee is a family violence survivor and passionate advocator.

After suffering a decade of abuse at the hands of her former husband, Nicole now uses her lived-experience of family violence to speak out for those who don’t yet have a voice.

Nicole, who also uses a wheelchair, focuses on family violence perpetrated against those who have a disability, or who depend on carers or family members for support.

Nicole has played a major role in shaping how Australia responds, and works to prevent, family violence. Among many advocacy roles, she is presently a Board Member at Safe Steps Family Violence Support Centre and serves on the Board of Directors for People with Disability Australia. Nicole is also a widely published author and sought-after commentator on issues surrounding mental health, intersectional feminism, disability representation, access and inclusion, motherhood, and also topics surrounding body image and acceptances after undergoing a preventive double mastectomy.

Speak Out is a content series produced as part of the Be A Better Human initiative at UNSW. In this series, we talk to people who courageously share their personal experiences with racism, discrimination, harassment and bullying; sharing how they have been impacted and what they’ve learnt from it. We hope these stories will help the UNSW community to understand how we can better support our classmates, colleagues, friends and fellow community members by being an active bystander and safely providing support to those being impacted.

The Be A Better Human initiative is a joint partnership between UNSW and Arc@UNSW. This edition of Speak Out is produced in collaboration with the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute.