Founded in 2011, Association Okvir supports LGBTIQA communities reclaim public space through community building, cultural production, activism, and alliance building.
Founded in 2011, Association Okvir supports LGBTIQA communities reclaim public space in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) through community building, cultural production, activism, and alliance building. Working with a feminist “multiple discriminations” approach, Okvir roots its work in the intersections of sex, gender, race, class, ethnicity, age and ability. Their main projects include operating an LGBTIQA “SOS” helpline and psychological support training for LBTQ women, mobilizing for state accountability and prevention of anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, and producing video and digital media and a range of cultural events to raise public awareness of LGBTQ rights. Through their alliance building, their work integrates gender and sexuality issues with feminist movements and progressive articulations of citizenship. LGBTQ communities in BiH continue to face intense violence from religious extremists.
Green Mountain Crossroads (GMC) connects rural LGBTQ people to build community, visibility, knowledge, and power through social events, support groups, political education workshops and study groups, and multi-media projects.
Out in the Open (formerly known as Green Mountain Crossroads) connects rural LGBTQ people to build community, visibility, knowledge, and power through social events, support groups, political education workshops and study groups, and multi-media projects. Our work is guided by these values: Rural can be Queer, Intersections, Celebrating Resistance, Connections, Anti-racism, and Joy. We envision a resilient community of communities that works toward the transformation of our economic, social, and political relationships. GMC lifts up and centers the voices and experiences of rural LGBTQ people at popular events like Played Out! LGBTQ Game Night, Trans Day of Remembrance & Resistance, Earth Gay, Out in the Open Summit for rural & small town LGBTQ folks, and Friday Night Group for LGBTQ youth. We deepen our understanding of the power of rural LGBTQ people through longer and broader projects like our rural LGBTQ racial justice study group and rural LGBTQ oral history project, currently documenting the story of Andrew’s Inn, a gay bar in nearby Bellows Falls Vermont from 1973-1985. We believe that collective liberation for all people is possible and that building the power of rural LGBTQ people across issues, identities, and generations, is critical in the movement toward justice.
Genres Pluriels was founded in 2007 to increase the visibility of trans*, intersex and gender fluid individuals and promote the rights of physical integrity and self-determination.
Genres Pluriels was founded in 2007 to increase the visibility of trans*, intersex and gender fluid individuals and promote the rights of physical integrity and self-determination. The organization raises awareness through media engagement, workshops and public activities, and through high schools and universities. Its interventions at the European Parliament/Council of Europe and in Belgian ministries aim to promote respect for the human rights of trans and intersex people. Genres Pluriels also provides psychological support to intersex people individually and through support groups. Genres Pluriels is increasing its focus on intersex issues by providing information in Belgium’s three official languages on its website, creating brochures to distribute to maternity wards in hospitals, holding public events on intersex issues, and producing a short film about the lived realities of intersex people.
Founded in 2001, Geten was the first organization in Serbia to acknowledge and base its work primarily on gender identity and expression.
Founded in 2001, Geten (formerly Gayten-LGBT) was the first organization in Serbia to acknowledge and base its work primarily on gender identity and expression. Its mission is to contribute to removing all forms of violence and discrimination toward LGBTIQ persons. Geten’s advocacy contributed to the adoption by the Serbian Parliament of amendments to the law on healthcare, enabling body modification procedures for trans people to be covered by health insurance.
In addition to advocacy, Geten builds and empowers trans, intersex and queer communities through support groups, an LGBT SOS help line, culture and arts, education, and networking. Kris Randjelovic, coordinator of Geten’s trans and intersex section, identifies as intersex and trans, and led the call to form Geten’s intersex support group two years ago. Geten is conducting qualitative research on intersex issues, and translating and publishing information to aid in the education of medical professionals, intersex people and their families.
Check out our 2018 International Trans Day of Visibility video featuring an interview with Geten-LGBT’s Intersex Section Coordinator Kristian Randjelovic:
Kristian was also featured in our 2016 Intersex Awareness Day video:
Founded in 2005, the CURE Foundation is a women-led feminist organization advocating for gender equality and progressive change across Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Founded in 2005, the CURE Foundation is a women-led feminist organization advocating for gender equality and progressive change across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) through cultural organizing, activist training and alliance building. They host the Women’s Network of BiH, made up of over 54 organizations and many individuals working for human rights. The first of its kind in the region, their annual ‘PitchWise’ regional feminist cultural festival brings together activists and communities for film screenings, exhibitions, workshops, lectures and street actions. CURE’s strategies include facilitating workshops with young women on women’s human rights, LGBTQ rights, activism and political participation; leading street actions to raise public awareness about women’s and LGBTQ rights; building the women’s movement and creating space for LGBTQ issues; and networking with women’s and LGBTQ groups in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro as well as in BiH. They also document women’s human rights violations and advocate with policymakers.
Bilitis was founded in 2004 as an LBT women’s self-help group.
Bilitis was founded in 2004 and is now the oldest LGBTI organization in Bulgaria. Their intersex work is intersex–led. They advocate for protection against discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics in employment; to ban the “normalizing” surgery of intersex infants; for a quick, transparent and accessible process for legal gender recognition including for intersex people. They work on LGBTI issues in education, with the publication of studies on the experience of LGBTI students and LGBTI teachers. They are participating in the Bring-In project, funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, to promote the equality of intersex people in Greece, Hungary, UK and Bulgaria, by educating socialand healthcare professionals on how to recognize, prevent and combat discrimination towards intersex people, while raising public awareness and advocating for actions to combat the human rights violations intersex people face.
students and LGBTI teachers. They are participating in the Bring–In project, funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, to promote the equality of intersex people in Greece, Hungary, UK and Bulgaria, by educating socialand healthcare professionals on how to recognize, prevent and combat discrimination towards intersex people, while raising public awareness and advocating for actions to combat the human rights violations intersex people face.
Aswat is a feminist queer movement for sexual and gender freedom for Palestinian women.
Aswat is a feminist queer movement for sexual and gender freedom for Palestinian women, who are part of an indigenous minority living and discriminated against in the state of Israel. Our mission is to empower queer Palestinian and Arab women, and stimulate an alternative discourse that promotes the struggle for sexual rights and freedoms with a community-based and grassroots focus. We envision a Palestinian society that respects the sexual and gender diversity of all its members and understands its struggle as intersectional against all forms of oppression and discrimination. By building a vibrant, mature, strong, and proactive cadre of young feminist queer and trans leaders, Aswat hopes to challenge the existing mainstream views and attitudes about sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity in the Palestinian society and regionally. Aswat remains the only group in Palestine that is entirely composed of queer and trans women that directly works on issues related to Palestinian women’s sexualities from an intersectional and queer perspective. As a grassroots organization, we are part of the community of beneficiaries for whom we work. We involve the community of queer Palestinian women in all of our activities, and we design our projects based on their needs and well-being, as well as the gaps that exist in the knowledge and sovereignty of the wider Palestinian societies. Legal and political discrimination hinders Palestinian women from developing their own discourse on sexual rights and freedoms. Aswat has to bypass a rigid system of Israeli laws to implement effective programs for sexuality education. At the same time, we deal with conservative stakeholders, and social and religious taboos that interfere with our work in the field. In the reality of Occupation, Colonization, Apartheid, and the geographical separation of Palestinians, Aswat contributes to offering an alternative to Israel’s Pinkwashing practices and Palestinian taboos regarding sexual freedoms and rights. By showcasing contextualized perspectives and positionalities from within Palestine and the region, or stemming from movements of queer resistance, it reaffirms the role of queer Palestinian resistance in the struggle for sexual freedoms and national liberation. At the same time, it highlights the importance of regional solidarity and collaboration by shedding the light on the intersectionality of regional struggles with the aim of advancing issues of sexual and bodily rights, and standing against occupation. Aswat’s work is needed to help queer Palestinian women and trans be more at ease with their identity as both Palestinians and queers, and rally them around the centrality of queer liberation for a free and just society. In addition to raising awareness within Palestinian societies, our work ensures that community leaders, activists, artists, academics and service providers are in engaged in and mobilized around a critical dialogue about sexuality and the discourse of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Stonewall Youth is an organization of youth, activists, and allies that empowers lesbian, gay , bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBTQQIA) youth.
Stonewall Youth is an organization of youth, activists, and allies that empowers lesbian, gay , bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBTQQIA) youth to speak for themselves, educate their communities, and support each other. We envision a community in which all LGBTQQIA youth have a full spectrum of choices regarding their bodies, self-expression relationships, and legal rights. For more than 25 years, our crucial and supportive community space for queer and transgender youth ages 21 and under has helped thousands of youth to actualize skills for self-development, self-care, leadership, activism, and community building. As an organization, we are invested in youth-led anti-hierarchal organizing and aim for their organization to reflect the values of shared power that we wish to see in the world. Therefore, our staff operates as a consensus based collective trained in anti-oppression analysis, adultism and positive youth development. As staff, volunteers and a Board comprised of LGBTQQIA youth and adults, our life experiences allow us to serve queer youth in the most informed and whole way possible. This organization is supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.
CLPR is a progressive organization founded to reimagine and reshape public interest lawyering in India.
CLPR is a progressive organization founded to reimagine and reshape public interest lawyering in India. Their work aims to develop a lawyering practice rooted in constitutional and human rights values, develop new approaches to strategic impact litigation that go beyond securing legal outcomes and instead employs rigorous empirical research to ensure substantive implementation and progressive social change, and develop a method of research-based public advocacy, pedagogy and communication that deepen constitutional and civic citizenship in India. Their work with trans communities has focused on three pressing issues: criminalization and resulting police and state violence, access to public services and securing legal gender recognition.
Labrys was formed in April 2004 by a group of young lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men with the mission to achieve equal rights, justice and non-discrimination for LGBT communities through empowering them, giving them voice and protecting their rights and freedoms.
Labrys was formed in April 2004 by a group of young lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men with the mission to achieve equal rights, justice and non-discrimination for LGBT communities through empowering them, giving them voice and protecting their rights and freedoms. Initially a community-based organization working exclusively on a grassroots level, over the course of 13 years of its existence, Labrys has developed into one of the anchor organizations in the LGBTQ movement of Central Asia. Labrys was the first organization in this sub-region to start practicing monitoring and documentation of human rights abuses and violations by state actors against LGBTQ people and reporting on them using national and international mechanisms. Its current work represents a balance between community mobilization and empowerment, cross-border and cross-sector networking and partnership, public education, and regional and national policy advocacy.
