Community Guardians

We are your shelter from the storm – a collection of trusted individuals in the New York City sex-positive community. We strive to make our community safe from abuse and danger. We are committed to supporting victims. We aim to deal with issues in an effective, safe, collaborative, and unbiased manner.

We are not a judicial, mediation, or policing body. Our goal is to collect information from those victimized in the community, provide support for victims, and share reported violations with organized group and event leadership.

If you’ve experienced a consent violation, abuse of any kind, coercion, misogyny, racism, transphobia, or anything else you think we should know, please take our brief questionnaire. 

Other questions? Suggestions? Concerns?

Reach out to us.

The founding 13 members were chosen through a publicly vetted volunteering basis during which we opened ourselves up to the scrutiny of the community at large, to ensure this team does not consist of anyone who has a poor track record themselves.

After this transparency period, we choose to remain anonymous, because members of our team are public facing, have serious careers in law, medicine, journalism, research, art and other disciplines, and as a result we would all prefer to remain under the radar digitally as much as possible.

Any additional members will be recommended by others in the group. Allegations against members of Community Guardians are taken very seriously. The group as a whole may ask a member to recuse their membership on a case by case basis. Each member is equal in their influence and decision making, in order to improve accountability and ensure that each allegation is addressed in the most unbiased way possible.

Every complaint is logged and passed on in the exact same way, no matter what the circumstance or who it regards, what party they are affiliated with or space they own,  whether they’re total strangers or old friends. And each individual is offered the same support and resources. This equal and unbiased approach is central to our mission and, we believe, essential to maintaining a safe and harmonious community.

We review every questionnaire and log all relevant information in our database, then provide support, resources, and connections to others who’ve informed about the same individual if desired. 

We periodically pass on information to relevant parties, community leadership, and organizations whenever necessary, working in partnership with said groups to ensure the safety of our community and its members.  

Organized groups and parties are warmly invited to form partnerships with Community Guardians. We keep lines of communication with our partners, who actively work with Community Guardians to exchange information, resources and keep our community safe. Groups and parties can promote their partnership with Community Guardians as a way to signal to community members that they prioritize the safety of their guests and events and use us as their point of contact for anyone who needs support.