Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis

Immigrant Justice from a Trans Perspective: An Interview with Gael Guevara, May 2009

314 Immigrant Justice from a Trans Perspective An Interview with Gael Guevara may 2009 jenna loyd jenna loyd (jl): Let’s start with a history of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. gael guevara (gg): The Sylvia Rivera Law Project [srlp] started off as a one-­ person fellowship. Dean Spade, who founded the organization, is a white trans man and lawyer. When srlp was created over seven years ago, there was a great need in New York City to provide basic free legal services to low-­ income trans communities. The services included everything from advocating to obtain public assistance benefits, to changing your name on your identity documents, to working with people who had issues in their workplace and in their living spaces, including pervasive discrimination in the shelter system. People were being kicked out of their apartments and homes due to transphobia , and trans youth were facing discrimination in the foster care system for being trans. So there was just a huge range of legal issues and a great need for legal representation, especially for transgender and gender-­ nonconforming people of color who are low income. We are a collective organization, so we have a nonhierarchal governing structure that makes decisions using a consensus process and involves the active participation of collective members and volunteers. The reason for becoming a collective was to expand the capacity of the organization to do the work, and to develop a structure with multiple access points where members have an active role in the decision-­ making process of the organization. We recognize that the power dynamics that exist within a hierarchical structure would make it impossible for our members to feel they could participate effectively and have Immigrant Justice from a Trans Perspective • 315 ownership of the organization, so we wanted to create an organization that is governed by the people most directly impacted by the issues we were trying to address. jl: Can you tell us about some of the policy work that the Sylvia Rivera Law Project does and the groups that you work with? gg: In addition to providing direct legal services, we do a lot of public policy work that impacts the lives of low-­ income transgender people’s access to basic needs. We work in coalition with organizations in the city and nationally on different kinds of issues, everything from birth certificates to public benefits, foster care, criminal justice, and immigration. One important issue is identification documents. Identity documents often require people to identify their gender; however, the process of obtaining identification that truly reflects one’s identity can become very difficult for someone who is transgender and who is also low income. There is a range of rules and regulations that varies depending on the agency that grants these identity documents. Social Security has a different list of requirements to prove one’s gender than, say, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the welfare office, or the passport agency. So when individuals go through the process of changing their identity documents, there is a lot more money expenses, paperwork, and verification hurdles they need to go through to prove who they are. And if you are low income and you have no money and no resources, the process of getting your id becomes ten times more difficult. We live in a time when we no longer question when the government implements sophisticated forms of surveillance and tracking systems to document our identities and use them in negative ways to further restrict our mobility and access to essential services. However, we continue to witness how these restrictions and increased security measures—disguised as the “war on terror” for the sake of our “security”—have had a very direct impact on the criminalization and growing xenophobia that affects immigrant communities who come to this country. And what many people don’t realize is that it has also had a huge impact on transgender communities’ lives and ability to obtain the proper documentation they need to be safe and get the essential services they need to survive. We are also working in coalition with a number of activists and organizations in New York City to pass a policy within the nypd that addresses the proper treatment of transgender individuals whom they come in contact with. There is currently no best practices procedures or guidelines that address the 316 • gael guevara and jenna loyd treatment of transgender people in their patrol...