Hate Violence Prevention & Response
From 2019 to present in their role at the NYC Anti-Violence Project, 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.
Community Safety Planning Trainings and Upstander Interventions
After Drag Story Hour events around the country experienced an increase in anti-LGBTQ threats and violence in 2021, Audacia and their team at AVP collaborated to create a series of event safety planning, safety marshal, and venue-specific planning workshops to support LGBTQ groups with an approach that does not rely on policing but instead trains up community members in upstander intervention, de-escalation, and other tactics.
AVP offers standalone online and in-person trainings and in spring 2024 piloted a free, six-week community safety planning training for small LGBTQ groups in vulnerable regions of the U.S.
Request an AVP training here and follow AVP on Instagram for upcoming free, public trainings.
LGBTQ Safe Spaces Protection Project
After the November 2022 mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Audacia and the leadership teams at AVP and Strength in Numbers Consulting developed a survey of LGBTQ safe spaces to learn more about the frequency and severity of violence and threats and to aid in developing a large scale response.
The publication Under Attack: 2022 LGBTQ+ Safe Spaces National Needs Assessment found that groups were experiencing frequent incidents, harassers were often white nationalists, and groups needed training and security measures.
Learn more about AVP's rapidly developing and expanding work at Protect Safe Spaces.
NYC Against Hate: Funding Initiatives and Policy Work
With increases in hate violence and bias incidents against many marginalized communities, spiking during the Trump administration NYC Against Hate formed in early 2019 to advocate for non-carceral, citywide, community-based prevention and response. The Coalition proposed and won the creation of the NYC Hate Crime Prevention Initiative and NYC's Office for Prevention of Hate Crimes, both first of their kind projects nationally. Audacia has played a key role in advocating for and implementing these projects, which have resulted in more than $10 million of community funds since 2019.
Read NYC Against Hate's Policy Platform, which outlines budget and policy strategies to reduce hate violence without increasing policing.