Identifying and confronting LGBTQ hate

The New York City Anti-Violence Project, one of the city's oldest LGBTQ+ organizations, released preliminary data from its LGBTQ Safe Spaces National Needs Assessment report, showing that around 60% of its affiliate organizations nationwide experienced at least one incident of hate violence. The report also found that 90% are braced for more incidents in the future.

The assessment synthesizes responses from 276 U.S. based LGBTQ+ organizations, taken from December of last year to the beginning of 2023. The survey found that three out of five participating organizations experienced at least one anti-LGBTQ hate incident: mostly serial incidents at major events and online, resulting in organizations requiring more resources and training to handle violence at future events. 

New York Nonprofit Media spoke to Beverly Tillery, the project’s executive director, about the root causes of anti-LGBTQ+ incidents identified in the assessment report and what can be done to combat the rising hate.  

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What kind of advocacy projects are led by the Anti-Violence Project, and what has this research revealed regarding the root causes behind hate incidents towards the LGBTQ+ community?
For many years, we've collected data around incidents of violence that are happening locally and nationally and we've tried to share that and bring together members of the community to identify solutions to help address the violence. A lot of times when we talk to survivors, getting to the issue of root causes is often homophobia and transphobia. Over the years we advocated for very specific programs that helped those needs whether it's around intimate partner violence or other kinds of violence and making sure that survivors have access to shelters that are safe. One of the issues for members of our community is that if you are LGBTQ there often are not enough shelter beds dedicated to our community. When people have to go into shelters, particularly if you're trans and gender nonconforming or if you identify as male and you’re an intimate partner violence survivor, the shelter system is really set up as a traditional system that primarily serves women who were intimate partner survivors. And so our shelter system isn’t set up to meet the needs of LGBTQ folks, so we've had to advocate for shelter access. We've advocated over the years for various steps that will help decriminalize LGBTQ folks within the legal system. We've fought and worked for sex workers rights, and making sure that LGBTQ folks are included in the conversation around police harassment and police violence. 

You mentioned that hate violence manifests in intersectional ways, from police violence, state violence and intimate partner violence – would you mind elaborating on the different ways LGBTQ+ are victimized? 
State violence is when the state itself inflicts violence on members of communities. Police violence is one example of that, but you can also look at other ways within the criminal justice system, people are criminalized and harmed. Sometimes, even in the case of this report, one of the things that we asked folks about was if they were reporting incidents of violence that they've experienced (or harassment or threats) and if so, to whom and then what the response was. So we actually have a fair amount of data about police response, and one of the more interesting pieces of data is that even when people and organizations are reporting incidents of hate violence and threats that are occurring to the police, when they do and even when they have a positive interaction, it doesn't necessarily result in an investigation or the results that people are looking for. Our community has a long history of challenges in dealing with the police and the criminal legal system as a whole. And a lot of people are still reluctant to report incidents to the police because they are worried that they will be further victimized, re-traumatized or harmed directly. 

From the assessment report, the rate of these hate incidents is increasing with the AVP projecting more in the future. What is causing this rise? 
We decided that we wanted to look at this issue because we've been seeing reports across the country, in the ways that white supremacist groups in particular were starting to target LGBTQ organizations and threatening them, harassing them, and protesting at some of them. Drag Story Hour is a good example that everybody is familiar with. In 2019, we started to see a rise in these incidents, particularly during Pride season, and we put out a report looking at this growing phenomenon of organizations being targeted by white supremacist and hate groups. In our report in 2019, we've looked at a two month period between May and July, and tracked 22 protests that happened at pride events and LGBTQ events, and 18 of those were Drag Story Hour events and the language that groups were starting to use was really alarming. So it was clear that there was some organized attempt at these attacks, and so this year, we wanted to do a more comprehensive study of what was going on across the country. So we created this needs assessment, where we have been observing groups, typical LGBTQ organizations and community centers, social service organizations, but also inclusive faith groups and businesses – where we started to see a rise in attacks. And so we have been compiling data about what people are experiencing and also what they need in terms of violence prevention and preparedness. 

How is the growth in LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media contributing to this new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization? How are nonprofits preparing for these hate incidents? 
It’s definitely clear that the wave of escalation really started around the 2016 presidential election where the conversation publicly really changed and there was a lot of public hate speech that was encouraged. So that was one point where people felt like they had permission to be publicly anti-LGBTQ+ and publicly anti-trans. I think visibility is a piece of it, but also as the community experienced a number of significant wins, including marriage equality where the tide was turning in favor of supporting and expanding LGBTQ rights, and a lot of the response seems to be direct backlash to the wins that we've had. I think right now, groups are scrambling. What people are looking for now is some kind of training and physical security resources. So people are starting to look at active shooter training or standard training but also, more detailed safety planning. 

Given the sweeping trend of anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the nation, what should policymakers and nonprofits do to address this worrying cultural shift?
One thing that we have to be doing right now is really being clear about the fact that the attacks and the battles that we're facing, are really an effort to take away the rights and dehumanize LGBTQ folks across the country. Children, particularly trans and gender nonconforming children are being harmed. There’s a role for everybody to play and really standing up against this rhetoric and not being fooled by the language that’s being used. It will take all of us collectively to be looking out for each other and standing up for each other, and demanding that our society protect those folks who are most more marginalized and who are most likely to experience violence in our community. It's going to take everybody standing up and saying we're not going to tolerate this violence in our communities. And particularly for us as New Yorkers, I think we pride ourselves on having and building communities that celebrate our diversity and are inclusive and supportive of all of us.