Today, March 31, is Transgender Day of Visibility! Let’s listen to trans persons around the world who tell us why visibility is important.
The UN LGBTI Core Group launched a video campaign on social media where trans persons from different parts of the world, with different life experiences and who speak different languages, join together to speak the language of equality, empowerment and pride.
The UN LGBTI Core Group reaffirms the equal rights of trans persons and shares their voices.
Nikkie de Jager aka NikkieTutorials
Kingdom of the Netherlands
Nikkie’s videos about make-up and lifestyle reach a weekly audience of millions of people. Her coming out video as transgender received more than 35 million views. Nikkie feels deeply involved with themes concerning social justice and equal opportunities for everyone. She increasingly raises her voice to address issues on her platform such as racism, gender equality and women’s rights. As UN Goodwill Ambassador of the Netherlands United Nations Association, she champions SDG5 and SDG10.
Social media: NikkieTutorials
Morena García
ARGENTINA
Morena García, Argentine transvestite activist. She is part of the organization Comunidad Travesti-Trans in Rosario (Transvestite Trans Community). Writer and poet. She works at the National University of Rosario and is a promoter of the Transvestite-Trans Labor Quota in the aforementioned institution. Member of the Federal Front for the Transvestite-Trans Labor Quota. Instagram: @amorrabioso
Jessica Marjane Durán Franco
Mexico
Trans woman of hñahñú indigenous descent, currently living in Mexico City. Jessica is a Human Rights Defender and holds a degree in Law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who has participated in political advocacy processes to promote the human rights of trans persons at the United Nations in Geneva, and has denounced the violence committed against trans people and transfeminicidios in Mexico.In 2014, Jessica founded “Red de Juventudes Trans”, a network of trans persons dedicated to weaving affective networks, strengthening trans activism throughout Mexico, and defending human rights. Jessica has facilitated training workshops for business and governmental entities on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, in institutions such as the University of Washington, UNAM, the National Electoral Institute and the Organization of American States. This year, together with Equis Justicia para las Mujeres A.C., Jessica’s organization submitted before the Mexican Supreme Court the first case of discrimination against trans persons, with the aim to redress and compensate trans persons who have experienced discrimination. Jessica provides pro bono legal counsel to trans persons. Jessica is inspired to promote and uphold justice, which will only be achieved when those who have historically been silenced have a voice.
Georgine Kellermann
Germany
Born as Georg Kellermann on September, 21, 1957 Georgine lived 62 years as a man in public and as a woman in private. As reporter Georg Kellermann she travelled through Europe, Hongkong, Africa and the United States. 14 times alone she went to Mostar, a suffering town in the middle of the war in former Yugoslavia. After working as a foreign correspondent in Washington, DC and Paris, France started working for regional TV stations at the public radio and television network WDR in the German state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. Her latest assignment is in Essen where she is head of a station with 120 women and men. On September 17th, 2019 on a vacation trip to San Francisco she decided to finish the “Lying”, created her new Facebook page and told the world what her friends already knew: that she was a woman. The support from her team as well from thousands of strangers was overwhelming and still is. Twitter: @GeorgineKellerm
Alicia Kazobinka
Canada
Originally from Burundi, Alicia Kazobinka grew up in Senegal before immigrating to Quebec in 2007. In 2012, she decided to get involved in an organization in order to be able to educate and raise awareness among people, especially those from the black community. It was at this time that she volunteered for six years for the organization Arc-en-ciel d’Afrique / African Rainbow in Montreal, which then led her to take up the position of social media manager for the Massimadi Festival. In 2018, the Massimadi Foundation appointed her as their new spokesperson, a position she will occupy for three successive years until March 2021. On a personal level, she began her transition process in 2016 and is present today among the few black trans women in Quebec. In 2020, she is on the cover of the Magazine Véro for the month of September as one of the 11 influential women of Quebec from the black community. Her background as a black trans woman gives her expertise in issues of gender identities and intersectionalities. Always very involved in the LGBTQ community, she gives conferences and workshops nationwide and campaigns for greater visibility of trans people. Her social networks (Facebook, instagram, Twitter): Alicia Kazobinka
Marina Reidel
Brazil
Marina Reidel is a transsexual woman, the first to receive a master’s degree in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Graduated in visual arts, post-graduated in psychopedagogy and a master’s degree in education from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Marina is a civil servant of the state education network and the Municipal Art Foundation of Montenegro (Fundarte) for 30 years. She wrote a dissertation entitled “Pedagogy of high heels: stories of transvestite and transsexual teachers in Brazilian education“. Marina worked in different actions related to education, both in the conventional education network and in the training of teachers and police officers at the military school, as well as in LGBT activism. Since 2016, she has held the position of director of the LGBT Department of the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights.
Porpora Marcasciano
Italy
Human rights activist and president of MIT – Movimento Identità Trans – the longest-running Italian LGBT + association. Sociologist and researcher, she has been working on the creation of an archive for the collection of sources and documents for the construction of a trans story. She has published several books including L’Aurora delle trans cattive (2018), Antologaia (2014), Tra le rose e le viole (2002), all with Edizioni Alegre. Since 2008 she has being directing Divergenti international festival of trans cinema. In 2015 Amnesty International Italia awarded her a plaque in recognition of her activism. The MIT Association was born in 1981 in several Italian cities. Today it is based in Bologna, providing important services and advocating policies in defense of the human and social rights of trans people whose pride and dignity it strenuously defends.
Gabe Scelta
UNited nations
Gabe Scelta works in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at UNHQ in New York and is Vice-President of UN-GLOBE (www.unglobe.org), which advocates for equality and non-discrimination for all LGBTIQ+ United Nations staff, consultants, interns, and affiliates working in the United Nations system around the world.
Jay
United Nations
Jay is UNDP Thailand’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Project Manager. He manages the ‘Being LGBTI in Asia and the Pacific’ programme and the Business and Human Rights project in Thailand. He also leads the work on inclusion of people living with disabilities and addressing stigma and discrimination towards HIV key populations. Jay identifies himself as a transgender man and advocates for equal rights and equal access to services of LGBTI people in Thailand.
Emily Dwyer
Australia
Emily Dwyer has worked for international humanitarian and development aid organisations since 2004. She is Co-Director and Co-founder of Edge Effect (www.edgeeffect.org), a specialist diverse SOGIESC humanitarian and development organization. Our mission is to ensure that people with diverse SOGIESC (aka LGBTIQ+ people) can access their economic, social and cultural rights, and do so with safety and dignity. We do this by building a broader, deeper and more accessible evidence base to support humanitarian and development actors to engage safely and effectively with people with diverse SOGIESC, including the online resource 42 Degrees (www.42d.org). We design and implement programs with humanitarian and development organizations and offer training workshops on inclusion of people with diverse SOGIESC, in specific thematic areas and across the program cycle. Edge Effect also supports diverse SOGIESC CSOs to work within the development and humanitarian sectors, and to challenge traditional sector organizations to make transformational changes, rather than seeing diversity of SOGIESC as one more box to tick.
Kim Coco Iwamoto
United states of america
After Kim Coco Iwamoto experienced workplace discrimination for being transgender, she decided to go to law school and become a civil rights attorney. She was managing attorney at a legal aid organization in Hawaii when she realized the need for licensed foster parents willing to affirm gay/trans teenagers. In 2006, while addressing the bullying her foster kids were facing at school, Kim Coco ran for election to the State Board of Education. She won her seat and unexpectedly became “the highest ranking, openly-transgender elected official in the nation”. She was reelected in 2010. In 2011, the Hawaii Governor appointed Kim Coco to the State Civil Rights Commission and she was confirmed unanimously by the State Senate. In 2013, the Obama White House honored Kim Coco as a Harvey Milk Champion of Change. Today, she works at the State Senate and she has a fearless 8 year-old daughter.
Tom Neuwirth a.k.a. Conchita Wurst
European Union
Tom is an artist, and a global figurehead and activist of the LGBTI community, Vienna EuroPride 2019 and NYC Stonewall Ambassador.