Isha L’Isha – The Haifa Feminist Center

Isha L’Isha – The Haifa Feminist Center was founded in 2008 and is the first one to critically engage with the issue of intersex normalization surgeries in Israel.

Isha L’Isha – The Haifa Feminist Center was founded in 2008 and is the first one to critically engage with the issue of intersex normalization surgeries in Israel. The project’s original aim was to stop the procedure of surgeries that was offered to families of intersex babies upon their birth without consultation and without parents’ participation, in violation of human rights of these persons and sometime against their will. The project focuses on raising awareness of intersex issues and to stir a social and public discussion on the subject. The project’s main aim is to transform the intersex discourse in Israel from medical to social, promote appropriate legislation, and to change the psychosocial and medical treatment for intersex people. The project has collaborated with the Ministry of Health and led to the creation of a special committee to examine the issue of intersex management and change the medical procedures in the field. After several years of hard work, the Ministry of Health in cooperation and consultation with the project team drafted new guidelines for intersex management that incorporate the spirit of the project. The aim of the new procedure is to guide the professionals dealing with intersex infants, to remove the “urgency” from medical conditions that are not threatening to life or health, in the hope to gradually delay the timing of irreversible medical procedures to when the person could participate in the decision regarding the assignment of gender and sex, if they wish to have it at all. The procedure has been approved by the Health Minister.

Black and Brown Workers Cooperative

The mission of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative is to fight for the social and economic liberation of the black and brown LGBTQIA worker.

The mission of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative is to fight for the social and economic liberation of the black and brown LGBTQIA worker. They were birthed out of the HIV/AIDS non-profit sector as a result of injustices such as hiring and firing practices, recruitment strategies, salary distribution, and professional investment happening within a vacuum, while simultaneously marginalizing those black and brown LGBTQIA people who they profess to serve.

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

LGBT ISSUES DISCUSSED AT FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND U.N. MEETING

A common issue faced by Colombian trans women is extremely high levels of violence: between 2008 and 2013, the number of murders of trans people in Colombia was fourth-highest in the world…

A common issue faced by Colombian trans women is extremely high levels of violence: between 2008 and 2013, the number of murders of trans people in Colombia was fourth-highest in the world. Despite these deaths and other violent assaults, no one person has been charged, according to Santamaría Fundación’s Director of Institutional Processes, Déborah Skenassy. Trans women don’t have access to health or justice because our bodies aren’t legitimized. We exist at the margins of the state.”

The police, she adds, are often part of the problem, denying help or arresting trans women without justification. Santamaría Fundación has documented 150 accounts of police abuse that have so far been ignored by superiors.

To counter this trend, Santamaría Fundación met with 35 trans women to discuss recent violations by the police. Their recommendations comprised a formal proposal to be presented by members of Santamaría Fundación to Cali’s police captain. Santamaría Fundación builds trans women’s leadership by offering programs like the escuela de formación políica, or political education. Twice a month the initiative brings together about 40 women of diverse ages and ethnicities to explore topics such as civil rights, sexuality and gender diversity, and political participation.

Astraea is Santamaría Fundación’s most constant funder and the only one providing general operating support. Astraea has funded Santamaría Fundación for 4 years (2011-2014). demo

Black and Pink

Black and Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and free world allies who support each other.

Black and Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and free world allies who support each other. Their work is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people, and their goal is to abolish the prison industrial complex. As a grassroots community organization, Black and Pink strives to take leadership from those most impacted by the prison industrial complex. Their monthly newspaper provides an essential outlet for communication, storytelling, power building, and solidarity for incarcerated LGBTQ individuals. This organization is supported through the Funding Queerly Giving Circle, which is housed at Astraea.  

Freedom Inc.

Freedom, Inc. (FI) challenges the fundamental root causes of violence against women, queer and trans folx, and youth through leadership development, radical service providing, and community organizing in low-income communities of color–focusing on Black and Southeast Asian communities.

Freedom, Inc. (FI) challenges the fundamental root causes of violence against women, queer and trans folx, and youth through leadership development, radical service providing, and community organizing in low-income communities of color–focusing on Black and Southeast Asian communities. FI’s anti-violence work includes working against systemic and institutional violence of poverty, sexism, racism, heterosexism, and cisgenderism as well as their interpersonal expressions of domestic and sexual violence. Their programs aim to change cultural norms into which people are socialized (addressing the root causes of violence and internalized oppression) and build capacity for survivors as leaders in their communities to organize for institutional change and accountability.

GALANG Philippines, Inc

GALANG was formed in 2008 by a small group of lesbian activists who saw that the LGBT sector in the Philippines was predominantly middle-class.

GALANG was formed in 2008 by a small group of lesbian activists who saw that the LGBT sector in the Philippines was predominantly middle-class. Given the realities observed on the ground, the group decided to establish an organization that could be a catalyst for the empowerment of Filipino lesbians, bisexual women, and trans men (LBTs) in urban poor communities to attain social and economic equity, and create an enabling policy environment. GALANG helped establish four (4) LBT people’s organizations with members living in seven (7) depressed areas/barangays (villages) of Quezon City. GALANG continuously works with LBT organizations as its partners, and recently expanded its scope of work to include heterosexual families and friends of LBT members. GALANG aims to support a cohort of LBT community members who can mobilize their peers around sexual and LBT human rights; create new/strengthen grassroots organizations of urban poor LBTs; support urban poor LBTs to access technology and skills development trainings, and to use these skills in gaining employment or engaging in income generating activities; get village development councils and local community leaders to issue statements of support promoting LBT human rights; and promote Filipino research and advocacy work on the intersections of sexuality and poverty.