Immigration Equality is “a national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive individuals. Founded in 1994 as the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, we have grown to a membership of 10,000 people in cities all over the country. We are run by a Board of Directors and have full-time staff in our National Headquarters in New York. Immigration Equality is funded by donations from our members as well as generous support from private foundations.”

On February 13 the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) is going to be reintroduced in Congress. Immigration Equality is asking people to contact their representatives to urge them to be an original co-sponsor of the bill. Go here to see the action alert.

There’s a manual entitled Immigration Law & the Transgender Client at the website as well, which you can find here.

“Transgender immigrants face a broad array of legal issues, from obtaining legal status to securing immigration documents that correctly reflect their identity. This manual combines two dynamic areas of law – transgender civil rights, and immigration law.”

San Jose Mercury News, 2/8/2009: We are family, too: Vietnamese Gays and Lesbians join San Jose’s Tet parade, by Jesse Mangaliman: “Nguyen was one of 40 Vietnamese gays and lesbians from the Bay Area and other parts of California who marched during the traditional annual celebration of Tet, the lunar new year. It was only the second time in the parade’s history that gays and lesbians marched openly — and the first time that families joined them. For Vietnamese gay and lesbian groups, the event signaled a new kind of visibility and openness in a culture that traditionally views homosexuality as shameful — and something to hide.”

A recent Racialicious Blog post: When Xenophobia Meets Homophobia, by guest contributor Marisol LeBron, originally published at Nacla and Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo: “The Prop 8 fallout shows how much work remains to be done to connect the LGBT rights movement with other struggles for social justice across a spectrum of issues. Unfortunately, it may have taken the brutal murder of Ecuadoran immigrant Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhañay to highlight the invisibility of queer people of color – particularly queer immigrants – in LGBT rights discourse. His murder will hopefully provide an impetus for coalition building.”

This is an article posted on the Common Dreams website: Gay Woman Fights over Hospital Visitation Rights in Miami court, by Luara Figueroa: “A gay woman not allowed to visit her dying partner at Jackson Memorial Hospital in 2007 hopes a federal judge will allow her claims of emotional distress and negligence to go to trial.”

An article in the New Haven Independent: Camaign Puts the “T” Back in “LGBT”, by Melinda Tuhus: “Now that they’ve brought same-sex marriage to Connecticut, advocates took on a new mission to a downtown town hall meeting: protecting transgender civil rights.”

Moments ago I learned that a client of mine, an Afghan man who fled for his life to the United States over two years ago has been granted political asylum.  This, after a battle in three courts and his unfair and repugnant detention for the majority of those two years — treated like a criminal for merely seeking to live a life free of fear in the United States.

Why do I write about this here?

• To this date, there are no cases carrying the weight of precedent for granting transgender persons asylum in the United States.  In other words, there is neither a law, precedential court case or regulation that formally recognizes the persecution of people who identify as transgender, as a basis for asylum in the United States.
• LGBT asylum seekers from other countries have often been forced to undergo, in their native countries, “coercive medical treatments” in the form of electroshock therapy, “immunization treatments,” and other horrible methods that I care not to mention here.
• LGBT asylum seekers are often denied asylum in the United States because they do not have the resources or access to attorneys to competently represent them.  How are LGBT refugees supposed to make their case — alone, scared, poor and detained — in a system where (one study shows) 65% of Immigration Judges deny asylum claims?  In a country where they are still, in a term some would use, second class asylum seekers?
• The Vatican opposes a United Nations resolution that seeks to de-criminalize homosexuality worldwide.
• 19 nations around the world allow a same-sex partner or spouse to sponsor their partner/spouse for immigration benefits.  The United States does not.  The Defense of Marriage Act continues to plague us.
• While President Bush (of all people) acted to end the ban on immigration for HIV-positive persons, the Department of Health and Human Services still has not removed HIV positive status from its list of classifications banning certain immigrants from coming to the U.S.

Here is one sad story of a gay man’s fight to escape death by fleeing to seek asylum.

These are intersections within the LGBT community.  They are important and real.  Ultimately, they are but one of the many reasons why I fight.  I ask you to fight with me.

What can I say? The fact that a majority of voting Californians want to take away some hard-earned (must we fight?) rights from me, my partner and hundreds of thousands of others just like me has angered me to act. Finally, my luxurious life as a middle-aged bisexual woman (among other things) living in a 9-year lesbian relationship has born the fruit of unrest, dissatisfaction and the inability to keep quiet. And, this fruit is oh, so sweet. It tastes like purpose, like motivation, like action, like inspiration, like joy and determination. And, I will be spreading it around, maybe making jam of it and selling it at Mormon breakfasts, giving out samples at Catholic sacraments, hocking it roadside in the Central Valley, starring it in a movie in L.A. or to decorate the White House cookies during this lovely Christmas (yes, raised Catholic) season.

I want to be an activist because I must.

One of the things I said to people after the vote on prop 8…what is this gonna take…the firehoses? That is the image that came to my mind. Yeah, I saw it…on the news…at the time. I want some credit for being around awhile. These are things that shape our culture; that speak louder than words (blog, blog, blog). Anyway, it has to be done and who better than me. We have to step up. But, now, I talked to my dad about this, he is older than even me, and he was fully supportive of action, but not so about getting arrested. He is a retired police officer and has a certain perspective. He asked me some good questions. Like, how will it affect your ability to get work in the future if you need another job? How will it affect your current job? What about getting a loan? What does an arrest record mean for me (and you) as an average person? Basically, what is the cost that it will incur on a life? What will the sacrifice be? And, can we make an informed choice so as to be willing?