Avy Skolnik works as the Coordinator for Statewide and National Programs at New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP). He facilitates the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs , a national network of grassroots organizations dedicated to ending violence in all its forms against LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) people. Skolnik also provides training and technical assistance to community groups, schools, hospitals, clinics, and law enforcement on LGBTIQ violence-related issues including intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and bias-motivated violence.

Can you tell us a briefly about your organization and the work you do?
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) is a project of the NYC Anti-Violence Project (NYCAVP) . It is a coalition of LGBT-specific anti-violence organizations around the country that do both direct services with LGBT people who have experienced violence, and also do community organizing, prevention education and other types of education within their communities to help build the capacity of service providers, law enforcement, health care providers, etc., on working with LGBT people. So my work is specifically with our coalition members.

Like the spike in anti-gay hate crimes in California after Proposition 8 , have you noticed similar spikes in other areas where there are efforts to legalize marriage or other kinds of issues. Can you talk about how you see these spikes happening?
Yes. We tend spikes in hate violence throughout our reports and various members’ reports that we’ve published, when there are either anti-LGBT initiatives that people are campaigning around, often times people who live in those communities, who already harbor anti-LGBT sentiments, for people who are homophobic and transphobic, when they see those campaigns, it often validates those attitudes and it sometimes makes people think they can get away with harming people who are part of those communities. So we often see those people escalating the violence or see people commit acts of violence more frequently during times when there are anti-LGBT initiatives that people are trying to pass. Similarly, when there are general increases in LGBT visibility, even if it is something that may be positive, or some kind of win for LGBT communities, often times that increased visibility correlates with spikes in violence as well.

Do you work with the police or the FBI to get your numbers?
No, in fact our numbers are significantly higher than the FBI’s. Our numbers come directly from people who are calling, who’ve experienced something. They are either calling to report it, to seek help, to safety plan, ask questions about it or to find other people who’ve experienced it—that sort of thing.

What is your primary method of collecting data? Can you talk about the range of complaints?
We get reports from our members and some people call us directly. Hate violence happens along a sort of spectrum of escalation. The most frequent reports are experiences of intimidation, harassment and threats. So some people they read or perceive as LGBT and try to pick fights with them, bait them, threaten to harm them or create a hostile environments for them. We see that happening a lot between neighbors, fellow students or co-workers —people who have regular access to the person they’re trying to target. So that’s one of the most common types of violence we see. We obviously see much more physically violent things that occur whether it’s people targeting folks outside of bars or at LGBT events, or maybe seeing somebody walking down the street and deciding to target that person. There was one recent example of that here in NY. It was the targeting of the Ecuadorian immigrants that resulted in Jose Sucuzhanay’s death. It’s an example of people that the perpetrators read as LGBT and also read as Latino. They targeted them based on those reasons and at least one of those reads was incorrect. Often times we see that happening. Based on someone’s gender presentation or behavior, people make a judgment about who that person is and target them based on that judgment or based on that bias. So we see anything from the ostracizing of people or isolating of people as sort of the “low level” of that hate crime spectrum, to slurs or jokes that are anti-LGBT or really anti any specifically oppressed community, all the way up to physical violence, sexual violence and murder, at the top of that spectrum.

Do you direct them to organization that can help people who’ve experienced violence?
Most of our member programs have hotlines. So, people call those hotlines, people who live in those regions where we have members. Those organizations turn over their data to us to analyze. Usually, people aren’t calling me directly, although NYCAVP does have a Client Services Department. So a good chunk of our data comes from there. But we definitely do get folks who call NCAVP specifically, and when that happens, we usually try to find a program close to them that they can contact for the services.

Are you seeing an increase in the country generally?
Because there are different member programs that pop up at different times with different folks participating in reports, and our organizations are really increasing their capacity and ability to collect the information we’re getting from people, we tend to see over the years—although there are a few years where we actually see reports go down—the trend in general shows increases in hate violence from year to year. What we don’t know is if those increases are because the violence is actually getting worse, because people are reporting violence more, or because our organizations are becoming more accessible and more visible, so people are hearing about us and reporting more. So it’s hard to say conclusively, but it tends to be that we’re getting more reports. Our 2008 report will be released most likely in May or June of this year.

How many groups are national network?
We are at about 35 groups right now. That’s across the country and into Canada also. And we have an NCVP Ally component, as well. These are folks who aren’t necessarily full members yet, but they are still in touch with us and we work with them on a regular basis. That’s an additional 12 or so—and that group includes people outside of the US and Canada.

What do you think of the new hate crime legislation that just passed the House of Representatives?
Our focus tends to be on trying to further hate violence prevention efforts and to create sensitivity and accessibility for LGBT people trying to access services when they do experience violence. This legislation doesn’t address that directly. So we support certain aspects of it such as inclusion of transgender folks in the FBI’s annual Unified Crime Report (UCR) and we support the general notion that you shouldn’t have to be engaged in a federally protected activity to be included in hate violence legislation. But a lot of local communities have enhanced penalties as really the main component of their hate violence laws. The enhanced penalties piece is something that the National Coalition does not support because it’s not preventative and because it tends to be applied in disproportionate or disparate ways.

Can you explain what you mean by “applied in disproportionate ways”?
Basically, one of the reasons we oppose enhanced penalty-specific laws is because they tend to get unfairly and unequally applied, specifically to people of color and low-income people who are prosecuted. Also, women who get prosecuted tend to get higher sentences than men. Because we see the subjectivity of sentencing coming down in a very biased way even though the laws themselves are designed to protect those exact same communities, they seem to be contradictory. So, that unfair application to the communities we’re supposedly trying to protect with this kind of legislation, is one of the main reasons we oppose it.

What do you support about this legislation?
The inclusion of “transgender” people. Currently, the FBI collects statistics and police are encouraged to collect hate violence statistics for specific groups and those include lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight people. They don’t include transgender people right now. So there’s a piece of the legislation that would encourage the inclusion of transgender folks.

Sexual orientation statistics have been collected for a number of years but it’s not mandated and it wouldn’t be mandated with this law. So what happens is that local law enforcement agencies are encouraged to collect statistics on hate crimes and they are encouraged to turn those statistics over to the FBI for the UCR. But to my knowledge there is no mandate that they do that. Not every state has sexual orientation included in their hate crime laws. Not every state even has hate crime laws, so not every state is collecting data and turning it over. Certainly the numbers they get do not actually reflect what’s happening. We’re mainly going to get documentation and potentially some funding for local law enforcement agencies to prosecute. The other piece that we’re getting is if somebody experiences hate violence and they’re in a community where the local law enforcement is bias against their group or are refusing to prosecute, there may be some mechanisms by which a federal agency could come in, investigate and then prosecute that crime.

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