2018 was a whirlwind, but we made it, y’all!

From attempted Muslim bans to family separations at the border, from this administration making it harder for student survivors to access safety and support to the continued targeting and criminalization of Black folks, 2018 TRIED IT.

We stood with every survivor who said #MeToo and we believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. We stood with trans folks to say #YouWillNotBeErased and we are determined to keep fighting back against the harm that SESTA/FOESTA is causing people in the sex trade. We won’t stop showing up for one another, because we know that gendered harassment and violence harms those of us at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities differently, and with more frequency and severity. And we are NOT HERE FOR IT — leave it in 2018!

Right here at home, our work continues. Despite lots of internal transitions and a world hell-bent on destroying us, we rose to the challenge. Here’s a look back at what we accomplished through collective action this year:

We passed the Street Harassment Prevention Act (SHPA)! In an enormous victory for D.C.’s #MeToo movement, driven by your stories and our collective advocacy, we moved the D.C. Council to pass SHPA — a first-of-its-kind, landmark legislation that will bring us closer to a vision of a city free from harassment, using a community-based and non-criminal approach that recognizes the harms that the criminal legal system inflicts on D.C.’s most marginalized communities, especially women and LGBTSTGNC* people of color.

800+ reached for #DecrimNOW — We organized our community and centered queer and trans people of color as we conducted sex worker speak-outs, canvassed all across the city reaching hundreds of D.C. residents, and advocated with the D.C. Council in an effort to decriminalize adult, consensual sex work in the District. Decriminalization would allow sex workers to stay safer from interpersonal and state violence while reducing barriers that sex workers face in accessing alternative opportunities and resources.

1000+ people were equipped with strategies to respond directly to harassment and violence using community-based alternatives to police. From workplace harassment to harassment on our public transit system, CASS is taking our bystander intervention to new audiences, and working to making D.C. safer for all of us!

10 new bars joined the Safe Bar Collective (SBC) — SBC trains nightlife staff to respond to sexual harassment and prevent sexual assault, and now staff is using the same strategies to interrupt racist, transphobic, and hateful microaggressions, inside the bar and in hiring. And in our second cohort of the SBC Jobs Program, 4 trans people of color became trained in restaurant job skills!

2 new staff! We hired two part-time staff members to help push our work forward: a training coordinator and a communications and development coordinator. You can read more about them, here!

Thank you for all of the ways you’ve supported us — connecting us to bars, bringing us to train your staff and volunteers, speaking out at rallies, offering your resources, canvassing with us, amplifying our work, and more. YOU ARE AMAZING!

We don’t call it collective action for nothing. Y’all are proof that we are stronger together.

Our small but mighty team couldn’t do this without you. Help us grow in 2019 and beyond by making a tax-deductible end of the year gift today!