This dissertation examines the intersections of gentrification, policing, and the criminalization of marginalized communities in Los Angeles through an anti-carceral feminist lens. Using state archives, ethnographic field notes, interviews and autoethnography, the study investigates how public spaces like Echo Park Lake and MacArthur Park become contested sites of displacement and criminalization under the guise of urban renewal and safety. The research focuses on how technologies of surveillance and policies, such as the Glendale Corridor Gang Injunction and municipal code 41.18, perpetuate anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, and transphobic violence against unhoused communities, drug users, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. Drawing on Deborah Vargas’ concept of suciedad—excess subjects rendered undesirable to the state—the paper theorizes MacArthur Park as a site of queer and trans Latinx refusal and diasporic history. Through case studies, including the sweeping of unhoused encampments and the criminalization of sex work along Figueroa Boulevard, this paper critiques the moral panics and spatial policing tactics targeting communities deemed undesirable. It interrogates the use of nonconsensual street photography and videography in creating and perpetuating harmful media representations of sex workers, particularly Black and Latinx women, while highlighting subversive practices of self-representation and resistance. The study also centers on feminist cultural practitioners, Indigenous Latinx artists, and multiracial organizers who engage in mutual aid and harm reduction to combat the layered violences of gentrification, patriarchy, and racial capitalism. Events like Ska Night at MacArthur Park are explored as aesthetic and organizational disruptions to hegemonic Latinidad and respectability politics. These creative interventions envision queer futures that challenge the abandonment and invisibilization of marginalized genders and sexualities.As Los Angeles prepares for global mega-events like the FIFA World Cup (2026) and the Summer Olympics (2028), efforts to sanitize the city through spatial injunctions, encampment sweeps, and policing are accelerating. By curating conversations with anti-carceral feminist organizers and cultural practitioners, this paper offers a critical analysis of the carceral state’s tactics and charts pathways for solidarity, refusal, and creative interventions. Ultimately, this study highlights the transformative potential of feminist cultural production in resisting the weaponization of identities and creating liberatory futures for those at the margins of society.