About Me
Audacia Ray (they/them) is a bisexual and nonbinary writer and advocate with 20 years of experience in LGBTQ, sex worker, feminist, and anti-violence organizing, communications, and policy work. In a recent turn toward writing fiction, Dacia has become a Tin House Winter Workshop alumn and has published short stories in Necessary Fiction, Litro Magazine, Superstition Review, and Stone Canoe. Previously, they hosted the Red Umbrella Diaries, a monthly sex worker storytelling series, for five years; they executive produced a documentary of the same name that screened at DOC NYC and internationally. Dacia's directorial debut film, The Bi Apple, won a Feminist Porn Award in 2007 and was recommended by O Magazine. Their nonfiction debut book, Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration, was published by Seal Press in 2007 and their now-defunct blog was named Best Sex Blog by the Village Voice in 2011.
Audacia is the Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project, has led storytelling and sex worker rights campaigns at the Red Umbrella Project, and edited $pread magazine and its respective best-of anthology published by Feminist Press.
Dacia has a MA in American Studies from Columbia University and a BA in Cultural Studies from Eugene Lang at the New School. They have also worked in museums, volunteer distributing free queer books in Brooklyn by bike, have a permaculture design certificate, and read about 150 books a year. They spend their time in Brooklyn and the Catskill Mountains
Press
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Finding Safety and Joy In Queer Spaces - LGBT Bar NY Podcast
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Audacia Ray and Somjen Frazer: Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Violence Incidents - Everytown for Gun Safety
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Drag Queen Story Hour Isn’t Going Anywhere, But It’s Getting Serious About Safety - Rolling Stone
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Do 'Coercive Control' Laws Really Help Abuse Victims? - The Cut
Research Reports
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Under Attack: 2022 LGBTQ+ Safe Spaces National Needs Assessment. Ray, Audacia, Tillery, B., Frazer, S., Hasford, S. and Givens, O. New York City Anti-Violence Project: 2023.
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Individual Struggles, Widespread Injustice: Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People’s Experiences of Systemic Employment Discrimination in New York City. Audacia Ray, Lolan Sevilla, and Teal Inzunza. New York City Anti-Violence Project: 2018.
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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Hate and Intimate Partner Violence in 2017. Beverly Tillery, Audacia Ray, Eliel Cruz, and Emily Waters. Nation Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs: 2018.
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Criminal, Victim, or Worker? Impacts of the Human Trafficking Intervention Courts on Adults Arrested on Prostitution-Related Offenses in New York. Audacia Ray and Emma Caterine. Red Umbrella Project: 2014.
Project Highlights
From 2019 to present, Audacia has led and collaborated on a variety of policy, budget, and education initiatives to prevent and respond to anti-LGBTQ hate violence. These efforts have yielded $10 million in New York City funding to support community-based and non-carceral responses to hate incidents, a national survey and report on LGBTQ safe spaces and the threats they experience, and the development of community safety planning trainings and best practices for small LGBTQ groups.
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The Nonbinarian Book Bike is a trans & queer led mutual aid project that distributes free queer books by bike at events in Brooklyn.
You can find Audacia biking the pink cargo bike as well as doing behind the scenes logistics and fundraising work for the Book Bike.
Support the Book Bike by coming to an event, buy kids books for us to give away, or become a sustaining supporter.
Audacia has contributed to or edited more than a dozen anthologies about sexuality and sex work. Their solo-authored nonfiction debut Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration was published by Seal Press in 2007. Since 2021, they have turned their writerly energies toward fiction. Dacia is currently at work on a novel and a collection of short stories. They also read about 150 books a year, and you can follow their reading habits on Goodreads and The Storygraph.
As they have begun to divert their attention away from nonfiction writing about sex work and sexuality, Audacia has focused on writing and publishing environmental writing, short stories, and queer fables.
>> Read their debut short story Fawning in Necessary Fiction.
For five years Audacia hosted the Red Umbrella Diaries, a monthly sex worker storytelling event at Happy Ending in New York City's Lower East Side. The series spun out into Audacia leading memoir workshops and publishing five issues of a sex worker memoir literary journal, and culminated with the 2015 premiere of a full length documentary of the same name. Learn more about the broad range of sex worker storytelling projects Dacia did from 2004 - 2019 here and watch the full 99 minute documentary on YouTube.