As some Americans begin the transition back to in-person spaces, physical safety remains of the utmost concern for marginalized people. Lavender Book, a new crowdsourced directory, aims to alleviate such anxieties about returning to “normal life” by designating safe spaces for Black LGBTQ+ folks.
The app, which launched Monday, was co-created by the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) and Out in Tech. Lavender Book’s landing page greets visitors with a logo that suggests its intersectional aims: a flag with three shades of brown that meets a purple-and-white striped flag to create a book-shaped symbol. The app is based on the Jim Crow-era Green Book, a guide that advised Black motorists of safe public establishments on their travels throughout the country.
Lavender Book was “built for the Black Queer, Black Trans, and Black Gender Non-Binary communities” with a mission “to spread the word about spaces where people can be themselves,” according to its website. Similar to the community-driven Yelp, the app allows users to search for the specific name of an establishment, specify their location, search by categories ranging from “airsoft” to “zoos,” and apply filters like “Black-Owned,” “Sober-Friendly,” “Wheelchair Ramp On-Site,” and more.
The wide range of features hopes to ease the “uncompensated labor that goes into finding safe spaces,” according to David Johns, executive director of NBJC.
Some of that labor, Johns said in an interview with NBC News, includes spending “a lot of time making phone calls and leveraging community networks to identify places where the likelihood of us being victims of verbal harassment, bias, discrimination or violence” is heightened.
Johns said those experiences led him to realize his years-long dream of creating a resource like Lavender Book for the Black LGBTQ+ community. In a world where Black LGBTQ+ people are targeted with harassment and violence at astronomically high rates, an app like Lavender Book is an unfortunate necessity.
More than three-quarters of Black LGBTQ+ respondents reported “moderate or significant impacts to their psychological well-being” as a result of discrimination, according to the 2020 State of the LGBTQ Community survey conducted by the Center for American Progress (CAP). Two-thirds reported the same impacts on their physical well-being, while 60 percent also said that race led them to alter their behavior to avoid discrimination.
Additionally, 2021 has seen both a huge increase in anti-Black, transphobic legislation in the U.S., and in anti-trans homicides. As in prior years, the majority of transgender people to lose their lives to violence are Black women.
Sage Grace Dolan-Sandrino, a Black, Latina trans woman, told NBC News that the app is a critical resource for people who claim multiple marginalized identities. Doland-Sandrino said the app would have prevented her from “getting [her] car fixed by a Trump-supporting, white nationalist, gun-toting mechanic.”
“It is imperative to my survival that I know in what spaces I am safe,” she told NBC News.
While Lavender Book currently focuses on businesses, it may expand in the future to include services such as hospitals, clinics, and health care centers, according to Peter Redmond, a member of Out in Tech.
Lavender Book is available now through its website.
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