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Sylvia Rivera Law Project Featured in ArtForum.com

Long-time Astraea grantee partner, Sylvia Rivera Law Project’’s 4th annual “Small Works for Big Change” was a smashing success. Held at the donated Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation whose gallery was nearly filled to capacity, the event featured over 50 contributing artists and a runway show.

On March 5th, Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) will team up with fellow Astraea grantee partner, the Audre Lorde Project, to present a joint benefit show, The Get Down. SRLP works to works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. After recent legal victories for gender self-determination and protections for youth, SRLP has launched a new monthly legal clinic in the Bronx.

Law and Disorder

By Lauren O’Neill-Butler for ArtForum.com

New York, NY—SINK OR SWIM. Since art nonprofits (and downtown art nonprofits in particular) have dealt with those looming conditions for ages, it felt only natural that last Tuesday night, during several events feting such institutions, conversations about community would trump those about the economic downturn. White Columns celebrated its prestigious history with the opening of “40 Years/40 Projects,” and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project held its fourth annual “Small Works for Big Change” auction at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation. The latter, a benefit that is supported by donations and volunteers, raises funds for free legal services for low-income transgender and intersex people. Pressed to catch the 7:30 PM SRLP fashion show, and hoping to make a pit stop at the Swiss Institute for Marlo Pascual’s opening, time and space seemed to collapse as I rode a wave of giddy, infectious cheer, post–season of giving, pre-–Obama inauguration.

First up was White Columns, where ever-gracious curator Amie Scally pointed out a few highlights–––a 1970 New York Times review by Peter Schjeldahl, Lovett/Codagnone’s 1995 video Samurai Love, and the newspaper exhibition catalogue from the 2004 “Gloria” show. Did it come as a surprise to see the august critic and artists meandering around the galleries? Not really. Maybe it was all the ephemera going to my head, but already the art world seemed a little smaller, more tightly knit—1970s redux. Salvaged from basement archives, the show includes a 1988 checklist from Cady Noland’s exhibition, with works priced at two and four hundred dollars. Amid chatter about those now-bargain-basement prices, director Matthew Higgs elaborated on the archive’s poor condition, as we gazed fondly at the three remaining documents from Kim Gordon’s 1981 show and discussed the potential for a panel featuring all of the White Columns directors—a disparate clan, to be sure. Clocking the time—–nearly 7 PM—–on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Perfect Lovers, I squeezed through the by-then-bustling crowd and caught a taxi to SoHo.

At the Swiss Institute, wistful new works by fresh-faced Pascual were reminiscent of her show last year at White Columns––everything comes full circle. The hallways were crowded and the elevator packed, but the large main gallery, featuring a mammoth steel sculpture by Pierre Vadi and Christian Dupraz, was relatively empty, perhaps because no one wanted to step on the frail, barely there glass rings on the floor (although by the looks of it, several already had). During a few quick New Year catch-ups, I tried to persuade friends to tag along to the final destination of the night––it was, after all, a good cause. “I don’t like art that has an obligation,” one asserted. “You killed Proposition 8!” I heard someone retort. And off we went.

En route to the benefit, as we navigated the nearly barren streets, my mind wandered back to the early ’70s again. (Last year, the auction was at Sara Meltzer Gallery, and the year before at Orchard; its flight to SoHo seemed perfectly timed.) This quasi-nostalgia was in full effect once I arrived at Leslie/Lohman, where a few hundred participants were having the loudest art party I’’d ever seen. Tacked above the entrance desk, a large handmade sign—the sort familiar to protests and DIY celebrations––welcomed visitors to the auction, while T-shirts and posters for sale at prices from two to ten dollars suggested that no one would leave empty-handed.

“How bad do you want it?” someone screamed above the blaring hip-hop as I made my way toward the stage, shouldering through the sea of radical––and radically different––people. I tried to find out what “it” was––the art, the clothes, the drinks, or something more lubricious––but the show was just ending. Or at least, I thought it was, since the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were prancing around all night, selling raffle tickets for a two-hour “Kink Session.” Playing name-that-tune with some friends, I caught up with a few of the benefit’s organizers (full disclosure: I helped out over the summer) and checked the works lining the walls, taking second glances at Isabelle Woodley’s and Lisa Ross’s contributions. “I’m just relieved my work was bid on!” exclaimed another artist in the show, while one more told me he was just as relieved there were no bids yet. “Saving the best for last,” he said as I nodded, lip-synching to Madonna’s “Lucky Star.” It seemed hardly any time had passed before MC Jennifer Miller was screaming over the music for everyone to bid. On command, the pages appeared to fill up. During those fleeting moments, in the midst of joyful and jostling bodies, downtown seemed immune to the downturn.

As seen on ArtForum.com

Utne Reader features International Two Spirit Gathering

Last August, Astraea grantee partner Two Spirit Press Room coordinated the 20th International Two Spirit Gathering. Invited as a media guest, the Utne Reader has this account.

The next International Two Spirit Gathering, sponsored by Astraea grantee partner, the Denver Two Spirit Society, will be held in Estes Park, CO in October. Visit: www.denvertwospirit.com

Sacred Rights of the International Two Spirit Gathering
Gay and transgender Native Americans find acceptance in tradition

by John Rosengren for Utne Reader

He checks his plaid skirt, stockings, and deep-cut white blouse. When another man’s eyes fall on his cleavage, Richard squeezes his breasts together and answers the silent inquiry: “They’re real!”

Beyond the bathroom doors, men and women dance around a drum in more traditional costume—feathers, fox pelts, moccasins, beads, and bells. They’re all here for the 20th annual International Two Spirit Gathering, a celebration of and for those who feel they carry both male and female spirits.

In late August 2008, some 85 Native lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from three dozen tribes in Canada and the United States traveled to the Audubon Center of the North Woods, 90 miles north of Minneapolis.

There, communing under the tall pines, they would sit in a sweat lodge, pray together at the sacred fire, engage in a water ceremony, and dance at the powwow. They would listen to a mother talk about her son’s struggle with coming out, hear the results of a groundbreaking health study, and receive a blessing from an elder.

They would also watch Sanchez–—in full drag, lip-synching his version of “I Kissed a Girl–”—win the event’s annual talent contest.

“We want people who face difficulties in their day-to-day lives to be able to stop and breathe,” says Richard LaFortune, a Yupik from Minneapolis and national director of Two Spirit Press Room, sponsor of the 2008 event. “We want people to walk away with new friendships, good memories, and something to restore themselves.”

Organizers have wanted to keep out spiritual and cultural tourists who may be well intentioned but nosy. In 2008, however, they decided to allow a few media representatives, including an Utne Reader writer and photographer, to attend in order to tell their stories to a wider audience.

The Minneapolis Native community hosted the first Two Spirit Gathering in 1988. “We didn’’t have a lot of places to meet and socialize except with the mainstream LGBT community, which was in bars, and those aren’t a good place for us,” says LaFortune, one of the event’s original organizers. Since then, some 3,200 people have attended the alcohol- and drug-free gathering in locales including Montreal, Vancouver, Kansas City, Eugene, Tucson, San Jose, and Butte.

Many in the Two Spirit community just don’t feel at home within the broader LGBT scene. Karina Walters, a Two Spirit Choctaw and a professor of social work at the University of Washington, tells the group gathered at the Audubon Center about “the feeling of being expected to go along with the white homosexual party line, like getting your first dyke haircut or going to a gay bar and having a certain type of experience.”

Many are also misunderstood and shunned within their Native communities, even though some tribes once honored those with male and female spirits as shamans, warriors, and chiefs.

Men and women at the gathering speak of parents avoiding them or kicking them out of their homes, even being beaten by neighbors. “That’s what really hurts us, when our own people throw us out,” says L. Frank Manriquez, a Tongva-Ajachmem woman from Southern California. Manriquez, now 56, left as a teenager after her uncle asked if she was going to seduce her sister. ““I about threw up,”” says Manriquez. “”In his eyes, I wasn’’t human.’”

Misunderstanding and fear can manifest themselves—as they do in mainstream society—in overt abuse. Targeted because of both their race and their orientation, members of the Two Spirit community suffer higher incidences of physical and sexual abuse than the general population. According to a study Walters just conducted with funds from the National Institutes of Health, gay Native Americans also have higher rates of addiction, homelessness, depression, and suicide.

More often, though, LGBT Native Americans suffer a daily battering of “microagressions.” Walters defines these as “chronic injustices, messages that people of color endure every day that are denigrating, demeaning, and subtle.”

Take Richard Sanchez. Today, the 45-year-old theater prop artist from San Jose has an ebullient personality, but he has not always carried himself so confidently. When he was growing up in rural Northern California, the boys in his family adhered to rigid gender roles, fixing cars and taking care of livestock. Making clothes and cooking were not options, being gay out of the question.

It was not even cool to be Native American. Raised by his grandparents and schooled in the Catholic faith, Sanchez was taught that his ancestors were Mexican. It was not until he was 16 years old that his grandmother, literally on her deathbed, revealed the family’s Navajo heritage.

By then, his sexual identity was clear. As a preschooler, Sanchez was walking to school with his brother when they stumbled upon a girlie magazine. The pictures of naked women mesmerized his older brother, but Sanchez stared at the half-naked men. By the time he was 10, he had defined himself as gay and knew that meant he would be ridiculed. “My favorite character was Pinocchio, because he wanted to be a real boy,” Sanchez says. “I wasn’t a real boy because I was a sissy.”

During a break in the schedule, two men toss a football on the lawn in front of five colorful tepees. Two women, seated on the hillside above the lake, discuss a beading project. Half a dozen men and women smoke cigarettes outside the dining hall and trade jokes. “The laughter helps heal and transform all that oppression sickness that we get from this culture,” says Lawrence Ellis, a 47-year-old who refers to himself as Native, American, and African American. “There’s just such joy.”

A letter from Barack Obama to the Two Spirit Gathering pledges to “bring about a more tolerant America.” Clyde Bellecourt, a 72-year-old elder and one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, speaks to the group about the importance of connecting with their identity. His words carry special weight and move some to tears: “I stand in total solidarity with each and every one of you,” he tells them. “I love you.”

Bellecourt’s blessing, Obama’s words, and the gathering itself honor the community. “It’s a way to keep something sacred and alive,” Manriquez says. “Some people here are doing remarkable things, even if it’s as simple as being themselves.”

As seen in the Utne Reader

Shades of Yellow

Shades of Yellow’s mission was to cultivate a community of empowered HAPI LGBTQI (Hmong and Asian Pacific Islander, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) and allies.

Shades of Yellow’s mission was to cultivate a community of empowered HAPI LGBTQI (Hmong and Asian Pacific Islander, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) and allies to challenge what we’ve been told about API and LGBTQI communities, and ignite positive cultural and social change. SOY’s vision was a world where HAPI LGBTQI and allies are liberated and celebrated for who they are. Existing in HAPI cultural communities where being LGBTQI or gender-nonconforming means risking displacement, disownment, and disconnection to families and community, SOY worked to make it possible for constituents to remain visible, be present in community, and acknowledge the complex intersections of their identities, identities for which many Asian languages have no words (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Intersex). This meant challenging their cultural communities to make room for all people and to acknowledge that LGBTQI people exist. In order to address and impact change, SOY used 3 main strategies: arts and culture, leadership development, and community building.

This organization was supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.

GLEFAS- Grupo Latinoamericano De Estudios, Formacion Y Accion Feminista

Founded in 2007, the Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) is a leading regional group that is initiating important dialogues, conversations, and political actions within the feminist and lesbian feminist movement.

Founded in 2007, the Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) is a leading regional group that is initiating important dialogues, conversations, and political actions within the feminist and lesbian feminist movement in Latin América and the Caribbean, as well as other social movements and land struggles in the region, looking to join efforts for more comprehensive policies to confront different forms of oppression. As Caribbean and Latin American anti-racist and decolonial feminists, one of their goals is to produce autonomous knowledge from their own positioning as black, indigenous, and lesbian activists from the South. They collaborate with non-white and mixed-race women (or women of color, as it is commonly used in the United States) who are committed to intersectional politics and views in Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, and Europe. In response to the regional context of war, militarization, and violence, GLEFAS seeks to produce a political analysis from an anti-racist, anti-military, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, feminist lesbian perspective. GLEFAS seeks to support the creation of collectives in different countries of the region. *** En Español*** Fundado en 2007, el Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS) es un grupo regional líder que está iniciando importantes diálogos, conversaciones y acciones políticas dentro del movimiento feminista y lésbico feminista de América Latina y el Caribe, así como con otros movimientos sociales y de luchas territoriales en la región en la búsqueda de aunar esfuerzos para políticas más integrales que impliquen enfrentar diferentes formas de la opresión. Una de sus metas como feministas antirracistas y descoloniales latinoamericanas y caribeñas es producir un conocimiento autónomo desde sus propios posicionamientos como activistas lesbianas, indígenas y negras del sur. Colaboran con mujeres no blancas y mestizas comprometidas con una mirada y una política interseccional (o de color, como se dice comúnmente en Estados Unidos) en Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Perú, República Dominicana, México, Ecuador, Brasil, Estados Unidos y Europa. En respuesta al contexto regional de guerra, militarización y violencia, GLEFAS busca producir un análisis político desde una perspectiva feminista y lésbica antirracista, antimilitarista, anticolonial y anticapitalista. GLEFAS busca apoyar la formación de colectivos en diferentes países en la región.

Astraea Named Top Gay Charity by Qweerty.com

The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice has been named the “#1 Top Gay Charity” by Qweerty.com. The rankings were based largely on ratings by CharityNavigator.org, where Astraea has the highest rating–—4-stars—–for organizational efficiency, organizational capacity, and overall financial health. As a public foundation with a global reach, last year Astraea awarded more than $2.2 million to 198 organizations and 21 individuals in 120 cities and 47 countries around the world.

Read the post here: Qweerty.com

“Astraea’’s holiday party was an evening full of warmth and inspiration.”—Astraea Donor

Over 100 people filled Astraea’s paper-snowflake bedecked offices last Thursday, December 4th. Pockets of conversation and laughter sprang up as donor and grantee partners, staff, board, and new friends came together to celebrate. Whether you were able to be with us in person that evening or not, we thank you—–you are an important part of Astraea and Justice in the Making the world over.

Join us for a Holiday Appreciation Party!

Hear about Astraea’s groundbreaking work over the past year and what’s planned for 2009.

Join us for a Holiday Appreciation Party! Catch up with old Astraea friends and connect with new ones. Enjoy delicious food, drink, and fabulous people. And hear about Astraea’s groundbreaking work over the past year, and what’s planned for 2009.

Thursday, December 4th 2008

5pm – 8pm
At the Astraea Offices
116 E 16th Street, Floor 7 [map]
RSVP

Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Organizing in China – Report from Lala Camps 2008

In October 2008, five groundbreaking regional Organizer Training Camps took place across China in Chengdu, Kunming, Beijing, Anshan and Shanghai.

In October 2008, five groundbreaking regional Organizer Training Camps took place across China in Chengdu, Kunming, Beijing, Anshan and Shanghai. Now, New Yorkers who were there discuss current LBT organizing efforts in China – recent victories, highlights and challenges raised by queer Chinese activists from a wide range of experiences and geographical regions.

Wednesday, December 3rd
7 – 9PM

At the Astraea Offices
116 E 16th St, 7th Floor, NYC [map]

Q N R W L 4 5 6 trains to Union Square

 

RSVP

The “Gay Adoption Ban” in the Chicago Tribune

Astraea Grantee Partner, Center for Artistic Revolution (CAR), is a founding member of Arkansas Families First, which is documenting how Act One is affecting alternative families and the more than 1,000 children languishing in foster care. More about CAR.

Next skirmish in culture war: Gay parenting

Arkansas adoption ban passes despite shortage of homes for needy children

By Bonnie Miller Rubin for the Chicago Tribune

Anne Shelley and Dr. Robin Ross are unwinding after a jampacked day of ferrying 4-year-old daughter Eva Mae from preschool to ice-skating lessons to speech therapy.

““It’’s pretty much your mundane American family,”” said Shelley, 46, over a dinner of barbecue at their home near the Ozarks.

But not everyone sees their domestic situation as a hefty slice of apple pie. Arkansas residents recently voted to ban people who are “cohabitating outside of a valid marriage,” as Shelley and Ross do, from being foster parents or adopting children as these women did.

The measure was written to prohibit straight and gay people who are living together from adopting or becoming foster parents, but it’s real objective, child welfare experts say, is to bar same-sex couples like Shelley and Ross, 52, from raising children—even if it means youngsters who desperately need families will wait longer.

““We don’’t have enough quality homes as it is, and now we’’re going to place more restrictions?”” asked Susan Hoffpauir, president of the Arkansas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. “”A lot of us are still shell-shocked by this.””

While the Nov. 4 vote to ban gay marriage in California grabbed the headlines, it is same-sex parenting that is heating up as the next skirmish in the nation’s culture wars. Last week, a Florida judge struck down that state’s decades-old law preventing gays and lesbians from adopting.

Nationwide, laws on the issue are a grab bag. Florida had been the only state that had a law specifically disallowing gay individuals from adoption, although they are allowed to be foster parents. In Utah, only heterosexual, married couples can adopt. North Dakota law permits child-placement agencies to rule out prospective adoptive parents based on religious or moral objection.

Conversely, in Illinois, prospective foster and adoptive parents can be single or married, and the state’s Department of Children and Family Services cannot use sexual orientation as a basis for exclusion.

Still, many Americans are opposed to placing kids in gay households, and social conservatives hope the issue will rally voters in the same way that same-sex marriage has in recent elections.

In Arkansas, some 3,700 children are in state custody, taken from their homes because of abuse and neglect. “Of those, 960 kids (average age: 8.5 years) are available for adoption,” said Julie Munsell of the state Department of Human Services. Of the 1,100 foster homes, one-third are headed by single people.

But beyond the state system, the ban set to take effect Jan. 1 will thwart private adoptions of children like Eva Mae, left at a Vietnamese orphanage with nothing but a yellow blanket and a gaping hole where her upper lip should have been. Moreover, opponents say the new law could jeopardize a wide range of non-traditional living arrangements, such as co-habitating grandparents raising grandchildren, and are not sure how far-reaching the impact will be.

“However, such scenarios are a “smokescreen,”” said John Thomas, vice president of the Arkansas Family Council, a conservative group that pushed to get the initiative on the ballot after it had failed several times in the legislature. “The real issue,” he said, “is that the state has to set the bar higher when it comes to finding homes for children.”

“”I understand that there is a lack of homes, but I refuse to believe that the choice is between a horrible situation and a so-so situation,”” Thomas said from the group’s Little Rock headquarters. “The council took its message directly to churches, speaking out against “the gay agenda.””

But finding potential homes for foster children is a continual challenge across the country—especially for children who are older and have special needs. Some 129,000 U.S. children are in foster care, and the only criteria should be who can best provide a loving, permanent home, according to Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

In a recent report, the non-partisan group concluded that a national ban on gay adoptions could add $87 million to $130 million to foster care expenditures annually because these children would then be living in other types of institutional care, such as group homes.

“On its face, this [Arkansas] law is just crazy,” Pertman said. “I fear what will happen if other states see this as a model.”

Social conservatives say the state could alleviate the shortage of foster and adoptive parents by stepping up efforts to recruit better candidates. “We have the opportunity to create the very best families,” Thomas said. “That’s what we should be aiming for.”

Still, a broad coalition of child-advocacy organizations—including the American Academy of Pediatrics—came out against the ban, as did Gov. Mike Beebe and former President Bill Clinton. Polls, too, predicted its defeat.

So, on Election Night, Shelley and Ross—who have been together for nine years—were cautiously optimistic. Then they were stunned. The measure passed in all but two counties.

“Do I believe that most people in this state hate me and my child? No,” said Ross, a psychiatrist. “Do I believe that the Christian right is more organized here? Yes.”

Eva Mae is sprawled out on the living room floor, intently working a puzzle, oblivious to all the adult anxiety.

The two women traveled to Vietnam in 2007, returning with a lethargic 2-year-old, who, because of a cleft lip and palate, could not swallow or talk and had not been outside since she was born.

Eva Mae endured several surgeries—and while her speech is still difficult to understand, she has all but caught up to her peers in other developmental areas. “She is very smart,” said Shelley, a former community organizer turned stay-at-home mom.

The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing a legal challenge to the ban. But people are afraid to bring attention to their families, said Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU in Arkansas.

[email protected]

SLRP Celebrates Legal Victory for Self-Determination

Astraea Grantee Partner, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, achieved a victory for gender self-determination. After a year long struggle, New York courts upheld a transgender woman’s right to change her name, reversing an earlier denial of her legal name change related to lack of medical evidence and the possibility of “confusion.”

Press release as posted on: https://www.srlp.org/namechangevictory

Read Newsday.com’s account https://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny–court-namechange1126nov26,0,3360898.story

The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, held that a transgender petitioner cannot be denied a name change simply because she seeks to adopt a feminine name in the place of a traditionally masculine name.

Elisabeth Golden, a 57-year-old transgender woman, initially filed her name change petition with the Supreme Court in Broome County in October 2007. Ms. Golden has been using the name Elisabeth in her personal life since 2004, and in her professional life since 2006; she wanted a legal name that reflected her female gender identity. Her petition was heard by the Hon. Jeffrey Tait of the Supreme Court, who initially suggested that Ms. Golden supplement her petition with affidavits from physicians or therapists. After Ms. Golden refused to provide such affidavits, believing them to be private, Justice Tait denied her petition, stating that “the proposed change of name from a male to a female name is fraught with possible confusion…” Upon reviewing the decision, the Appellate Division, Third Department ordered Ms. Golden’s petition to be granted.

Writing on the behalf of a unanimous panel of five justices, Presiding Justice Anthony Cardona stated that the petitioner had the right to change her name “under common law… at will so long as there is no fraud, misrepresentation or interference with the rights of others,” The decision goes on to hold that any potential confusion arising from a transgender name change “is not, standing alone, a basis to deny a petition…” and points out that any name change, regardless of gender, has a reasonable and ordinary potential for confusion.In overturning the Supreme Court decision, the Third Department also rejected Justice Tait’s suggestion that the submission of medical or psychological affidavits were necessary to supplement Ms. Golden’s petition.

Franklin Romeo, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project attorney who represented Ms. Golden, echoed Justice Cardona’s ruling: “This decision confirms what SRLP has long argued is the law of New York: judges cannot deny a person’s petition to change their name simply because they seek to adopt a feminine name rather than a masculine name, or vice versa. Nor can they request medical evidence regarding a petitioner’s gender that is irrelevant to a name change proceeding. This is an important victory for transgender people throughout New York State.”

Ms. Golden’s petition was the first opportunity for any of the Appellate Division courts in New York to address the issue of transgender name changes. It is now binding in the Third Department (which covers most of western New York other than New York City and Long Island), and is expected to be highly persuasive across the state.

Though Ms. Golden was ecstatic when learning of her victory, she also found the entire situation bittersweet. “It is somewhat comforting to know that our rights as citizens can still be protected, but sad that it has to go this far.” She went on to say that she hoped that the ruling in her case “furthers the lives of transgender folks and helps prevent others from going through this.”

Many transgender people seek legal name changes in order to accurately reflect their gender identity and the gender they live as. By exercising their legal right to change their names, transgender people can surmount potential barriers in workplaces, education, and many other institutions that require a legal name on file.

Although many trans people do seek medical treatment and/or psychiatric counseling as part of a gender transition, not all do, especially since access to health care is far from universal. Furthermore, many trans people begin the process of transitioning socially and legally before starting medical treatment.

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is a non profit legal organization dedicated to serving low income transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people of color. SRLP works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.

Press release as posted on: https://www.srlp.org/namechangevictory