How your donation to SRLP will continue our struggle for trans healthcare

Thank you for all the ways you keep our work strong against tremendous odds. In the last year, you have learned with us, strategized with us, marched with us, volunteered your time, made generous donations, and in countless other ways strengthened our work to end the trans-exclusionary Medicaid healthcare regulation. And we won. As 2014 comes to a close, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project needs your continued support to fuel the next stage in our struggle to build the wellness and power of low-income trans people and trans people of color.

Your commitment to trans healthcare this year contributed to four direct actions, over 3,000 signatures on our petition, and our federal class action lawsuit against the New York State Department of Health to improve the survival and wellness of trans people covered by Medicaid in New York State. With greater access to healthcare, our community members face fewer obstacles getting identity documents such as state ID, or getting jobs, housing, and basic social services. But our work isn’t done. As we have seen in Ferguson, Staten Island, and all over the country, the legal system is not designed to protect our communities. We must fight for the lives of our community members, fight to end racism and all forms of oppression, or violence and poverty will persist.

Your donation will help us continue this struggle by:

• Providing vital assistance to individual Medicaid-eligible community members who are being denied coverage of medically-necessary healthcare;
• Developing and distributing resource guides and public education tools for community members navigating the healthcare system;
• Providing know-your-rights trainings and community skill shares;
• And organizing with members and coalition partners to set the agenda for future policy change and community resistance centered in trans liberation and racial and economic justice.

Will you be part of the next phase of our organizing for trans people’s wellness and resilience? Join us today to ensure that our community can thrive by making a donation at http://srlp.org/2014gift or by sending a check to 147 West 24th Street, 5th Floor, NYC.

Thank you for your financial support to sustain our crucial work!

News and Accomplishments

• WE WON! After 12 years of community organizing and impact litigation, SRLP and our comrades won trans healthcare coverage under New York State Medicaid. Because of our advocacy, New York State also ended the trans healthcare exclusion from private health insurance. Now all trans and gender nonconforming New Yorkers can get the basic healthcare we need! With greater access to healthcare, our community face fewer obstalces getting identity documents such as state ID, or getting jobs, housing, and basic social services.
• VICTORY! After 12 years of advocacy, SRLP and other community-led organizations successfully pushed the New York City and New York State to remove the requirement of surgery for changing the gender marker on a birth certificate. Now trans and gender nonconforming people will have fewer obstacles to accessing healthcare, empoyment, housing, and other identity documents.
• WE DID IT! SRLP worked in coalition with the New York Legal Assistance Group, the Peter Cicchino Youth Project, and the Immigrant Defense project to ensure that New York City’s new Municipal ID program allows for applicants to self-attest their gender so that low income, homeless and undocumented people can obtain a gender-affirming ID without cumbersome medical documentation.
• Following the leadership of SRLP’s Prisoner Advisory Committee made up of trans people behind bars, we launched our End Solitary campaign to end punitive solitary confinement and work toward creating safer housing options for transgender and gender nonconforming people in prison. Our petition already has over 1,000 signatures!
• Working to end violence, detention, and deportation of trans immigrants, SRLP successfully pushed for new legislation to limit enforcement of immigration detainers in New York City.
• SRLP celebrated our trans healthcare campaign partners at the Attorneys and Advocates Awards, including our comrades from the Audre Lorde Project, GLOBE-The LGBTQ Justice Organization of Make the Road NY, GLAAD, the Legal Aid Society, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. We also awarded the first-ever Matthew Carmody Fellowship to John Skwiersky for his outstanding pro bono legal service to SRLP clients for over 2 years.
• SRLP welcomed Sasha Alexander, Director of Membership, Juana Peralta, Director of Outreach and Engagement, and Rage Kidvai, Paul Rapoport/Equal Justice Works Fellow to SRLP staff.
• We worked to meet legal needs by providing free, respectful and affirming legal services, advice and referrals to over 380 community members and increased the legal advocacy skills and awareness of rights for over 150 community members through “Know Your Rights” trainings and skill shares.
• SRLP increased awareness and support of transgender people by training over 1,750 students, lawyers, judges, and service providers. Highlights include training over 350 staff at New York City’s Human Resources Administration, over 60 clerks in the New York City Civil Court, and over 200 NYC Department of Corrections staff for Riker’s new Transgender Housing Unit.