Brooklyn native Linnet Caban-Brown’s decision to found Lesbians Against Violence and Aggression was based on personal experience; when her former partner’s abuse landed her in the hospital, she found she had no place to turn. “I started seeking out help from the NYPD, counselors, therapists and medical professionals…they all assumed that a man had done this to me, and when I would tell them it was a woman, they would laugh at me.” She then sought out LGBT resources, but found that most of those programs were geared toward gay men. “That’s when I decided that this was my calling, that I had to fill that gap,” she says. To that end, she and her current partner, Tracee Brown, founded The L.A.V.A.A. Group, Inc., a nonprofit organization which brings awareness to violence in the LGBT community and offers resources to both the abused and their abusers. Caban-Brown is also a senior case manager at Safe Horizons, a spoken-word artist, a plus-size model, and a mom to daughter Mariah, age 9. –CL

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