AVP was on the international stage on Monday as AVP’s Executive Director Beverly Tillery spoke on a featured panel at the Clinton Global Initiative The Pandemic Of Gender-based Violence: How To Address The Threats meeting in New York City on September 18, 2023.
Moderated by Dr. Chelsea Clinton, Beverly shared the panel with Jackson Katz of MVP Strategies and Kalpana Viswanath of Safetipin to discuss the layers of gender-based violence, with Beverly highlighting this violence’s impact on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people.
Beverly highlighted two cases showing the impact of Gender Based Violence on LGBTQ+ communities: Islan Nettles and O’Shae Sibley, explaining that LGBTQ+ experiences are important to include as data shows the violence is escalating.
“We want to make sure we are a part of the conversation because we need the resources and the attention and the time and energy from the community,” Beverly said to the crowd gathered. “And [the community] paying attention to this violence and helping us address it together.”
In 2013, a transgender woman named Islan Nettles was killed by a young man who had initially pursued her before being shamed by his friends. In July of this year, a young man who allegedly used hate language stabbed and killed a gay Black man named O’Shae Sibley at a gas station. Beverly highlighted that those incidents, along with many others, show how LGBTQ+ people can and do experience gender-based violence, often in ways cisgender people do not.
Closing out the discussion, Beverly shared the power of AVP’s grassroots work and its ability to influence policy saying, “because we do a lot of deep, local work, we are supporting survivors on the ground and we use that work to translate that into policy, and advocacy, and data so that we’re not just talking about it as theories, but we’re actually bringing survivors into the conversation about what should be prioritized.”
If you are an LGBTQ+ and/or a person living with HIV/AIDS and have experienced gender-based violence (including hate violence, harassment, sexual violence or intimate partner violence) and need support, contact AVP’s 24/7 bilingual hotline at 212-714-1141 or online at avp.org/get-help.
Watch the full panel discussion here.
