SRLP was founded in August 2002 by Dean Spade, a white, queer, trans person, as an Open Society Institute and Berkeley Law Foundation Fellow. Dean sought to create an organization that addressed the severe poverty and over-incarceration he saw in low income transgender communities and transgender communities of color, understanding that meaningful political participation for people struggling against gender identity discrimination could only come in partnership with economic justice.
SRLP became a collective in 2003, and soon evolved into what it is today: a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization run collectively by and for low income trans communities and trans communities of color, which provides legal services, public education, and works towards policy change through community organizing. Today the SRLP core collective, composed of staff and board, is always more than 50% people of color and more than 50% transgender.
In 2010, we moved into our current home at 147 W. 24th Street, New York, NY. This is home to the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice, which we are a part of. Our building hosts five other organizations working on issues of poverty, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, ablism and transphobia. Make sure to check out the home page for the MMJT Building and find out more!
