The Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence tracks policy issues related to our values of safety, equity, and justice. We want to share our insights on how proposed ordinances and legislation impact survivors of gender-based violence in our community. See below for details and how to stay engaged.
CEGV Supports Safety, Equity, & Self-Determination for All Students & Victims of Abuse
CEGV at a press conference in support of the campaign in December 2025
We are proud to endorse the No Hate in WA State Campaign! This campaign is working to oppose two harmful initiatives that negatively impact student safety, self-determination, and equity.
We will speak more in depth about the impact of these initiatives in a future newsletter, but for now our remarks from the press conference we attended back in December 2025 are below.
Amarinthia Torres and Lea Aromin, Co-Executive Directors of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence:
“Our Coalition works to build safe and just communities free from gender-based violence and abuses of power. These initiatives threaten the safety and help seeking efforts of all Washington students, especially our queer and trans young people. Forced outing does not make LGBTQ youth safer. Forced genital exams on girls does not make them safer. Reducing disclosures of abuse does not make survivors or our communities safer. These initiatives are a distraction from true safety by making young people more vulnerable to abuse, not less. “
Learn more about the initiatives and the campaign working to protect all WA students at the resources below.
CEGV Supports Transparency & Fairness in Housing
In our work to end gender-based violence, we value consent and access to accurate information. Both of which support making informed choices. We want to live in a world where saying yes, no, maybe, and everything in between is freely chosen rather than attained by trickery, misleading information, coercion, or lies.
Survivors of gender-based violence experience challenges securing rental housing due to poor credit or spotty rental histories resulting from surviving abuse. Additionally, survivors experience hidden and misleading rental fees that leave survivors stuck with a place they can’t afford. Some examples of hidden fees are pet rent, common area cleaning, receiving mail, use of in-unit appliances, and even fees to request repairs. The lack of accurate information about the true cost of rent leads to greater housing instability. Survivors can’t make ends meet, take on debt, or need to constantly search for a more affordable place to live.
This is why we support legislation to ban hidden rental fees proposed by Mayor Wilson and before City Council. The proposed legislation would ban and limit many unnecessary fees, require clear disclosure of fees, and adds new mechanisms for enforcement if landlords don’t comply.
Survivors deserve transparency and accurate information about the all-in costs of rent. This supports informed choices about where to live and how much it will cost to stay safely housed as they heal from abuse. Join us in supporting this legislation as it makes its way through the City Council process.