Center Blog

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center has devoted the entire month of April to the issue of immigration and how it affects LGBTQ People. Our Cultural Programs department has hosted nearly a dozen events, ranging from “Strategies for Winning Asylum by Overcoming Stereotypes in Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,” to “Immigration’s Impact on the Political Agenda.” And during Immigrant Heritage Week we hosted our “Third Annual LGBTQ Immigration Fair,” an event to connect LGBTQ immigrants to service providers that can address their unique needs. The Center’s Services for LGBT Immigrants’ Social Action Group worked tirelessly to organize the fair and their efforts paid off, as over 400 people attended the gathering.

Photo Credit Rob Zukowski

These events give a glimpse into the vital work our Center does each and every day throughout the year to help LGBTQ immigrant populations find support in all aspects of their lives and we were honored to be presented with an official Proclamation from the New York City Council,  praising our Services for LGBT Immigrants Program.  The proclamation, signed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, read in part:

“WHERAS: LGBT immigrants sometime flee their native country when merely being gay may be illegal, punishable by prison, and, in some cases, punishable by death. On this occasion, it is a great privilege to pay tribute to Immigration Services Program at the Center in New York City for its extraordinary support of LGBT immigrants facing these injustices and many other important concerns; and

“WHERAS: LGBT immigrants endure legal discrimination in many ways and need support for residency, mental health, HIV, family and other concerns. They also face numerous unique challenges, including their status as nearly invisible, highly stigmatized and marginalized individuals who often reside in generally underserved communities. Often, their undocumented immigration status interferes with access to their basic needs for shelter, health, employment, legal matters. These challenges are frequently compounded by social isolation from other LGBT immigrants, country of origin, asylum or residency, language issues, and more; and

“WHERAS: LGBT immigrants who visit the Center often seek help with dealing with the increased barriers to employment along with increased stigmatization and violence. They share how increasingly difficult it is to access and information that can assist them towards obtaining legal documentation. At the same time, they reveal the negative impact immigration barriers have on bi-national couples and their families. Due to the current inability for an American Citizen to sponsor their foreign born partners, LGBT individuals endure a devastating impact on finances, health and mobility of their families. Many nationals are forces to relocate abroad in order to keep their families together; and

“WHERAS: The Center has always been a tremendous resource for LGBT immigrants.  Services for asylum cases include: information and referrals, assessments and short-term counseling, letters of support in asylum cases when warranted, support groups and a social action group; and

“WHEREAS: The Center worked in coalition with other organizations as part of a movement wide effort to end the HIV immigration and travel ban. After two decades of discrimination and stigma, this went into effect on January 4^th, 2010. The Center also worked in coalition on the Uniting American Families Act, as well as on state identification issues which impact immigrant, transgender, young and homeless people; now therefore

“BE IT KNOWN: “That the Council of the City of New York gratefully honors the LGBT Center’s Immigration Services Program.”

As immigrant populations in this city reach and begin to exceed 40% of the population, the Center will continue supporting LGBTQ immigrants so they can bring all of themselves to this city and achieve all of their dreams. Congratulations to our Services for LGBT Immigrants Program and its extremely devoted Social Action Group!

If you are interested in the Center’s Services for LGBT Immigrants, you can learn more about the program by visiting this page on our website.

Glennda Testone

This year marks the first anniversary of the Center’s LGBTQ Foster Care Project, a Center Families program that works to ensure New York City based foster care agencies have the tools and resources they need to treat LGBTQ children in foster care with dignity and respect, and to create an affirming and inclusive environment for LGBTQ identified birth, foster, and adoptive parents. As part of this effort, the project has formed a partnership with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, “to provide foster care agencies with the information, training and resources needed to offer safe, high-quality and sensitive services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.” Under the new policy, “participating foster care agencies will have demonstrated efforts towards LGBTQ inclusiveness and cultural competency as outlined in ACS Best Practice and Quality Assurance Standards.” Those standards are based almost entirely on the guidelines, procedures, and best-practice recommendations from Center Families’ LGBTQ Foster Care Project.

The LGBTQ Cultural Competency Benchmarks include “ensuring that all youth, staff and parents receive notice of the ACS Non-Discrimination Policy, actively recruit potential gay affirming foster care and adoptive parents from the LGBT community and identify a staff person to serve as the LGBTQ contact person within the agency.”

Earlier this year, The Foster Care Project marked its pilot year with an orientation and recognition ceremony at the Administration for Children’s Services, where it honored five agencies for their work towards creating an affirming and inclusive environment for the LGBTQ Community. The agencies included: Harlem Dowling, Leake & Watts, Episcopal Social Services, SCO Family of Services and Abbot House. The Foster Care Project also recently welcomed three new agencies as LGBTQ inclusive, including: Mercy First, Children’s Aid Society and Little Flower.

And this week Center Families learned that Commissioner for the New York City Administration for Children’s Services John B. Mattingly, is honoring LGBTQ Foster Care Project Program Coordinator Tracey Little, with the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award. Little will receive the award at an April 28 ceremony at ACS. In a letter announcing the honor, the Commissioner said:

“In recognition of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services is pleased to take this opportunity to honor you with the Commissioner’s Child Advocacy Award for your outstanding contribution to keeping children safe and strengthening families.

“As part of our mission, ACS investigates reports of child abuse and neglect, provides safe homes for children in foster care and works to rehabilitate youth involved in the juvenile justice system.  We rely on skilled, caring individuals and organizations, like yourself, to achieve these goals.  Your dedication and compassion have made a difference in the lives of countless children and young people—not only this month but on every single day of the year.  We thank you for your contributions to this critical work.”

Congratulations to Center Families’ LGBTQ Foster Care Project for its positive impact on the key agency that looks out for the well-being of New York City’s children! Because of these efforts, a growing number of agencies throughout the city now have the vital resources they need to protect LGBTQ children and families!

This morning  the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center was thrilled to hear that New York City has implemented measures to ensure that transgender people have equal access to marriage licenses.  As part of that effort the Office of the City Clerk is instituting training for all City Clerk staff to ensure they are culturally competent on issues relating to gender identity and expression; the office reached out to the Center for our guidance and expertise in this area in early February. Today  the Center’s Director of Community Services, Carrie Davis, a social worker and expert on gender identity issues, conducted the first of several trainings for City Clerk employees happening throughout the Month of March.

The changes were enacted after a transgender couple was refused a marriage license  in 2009 and sought the help of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.  As NBC reported:

The transgender woman, who had been born as a male, and her opposite sex partner, who was born female, were denied a license to marry at the Bronx office of the City Clerk in December 2009. When the pair supplied identification, a worker in the clerk’s office asked for birth certificates in addition to the ID.

New Yorkers seeking marriage licenses are not required to show birth certificates if they produce government-issued photo ID.

After the couple threatened legal action and sought help from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Clerk Michael McSweeney told employees this week that all marriage license applicants must be treated with dignity, and that transgendered applicants only need to produce the same ID as anyone else.

Quinn said Tuesday that the decision “ensures that all New Yorkers will be treated equally, and with the dignity and respect they deserve from a government agency.”

“Transgender people are challenged all the time about their status as men and women,” said Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund. “We applaud the City Clerk’s office for adopting this policy and for taking steps to ensure that this does not happen again.”

You can learn more about the work that led to this change here. 

The Center’s Training Institute offers specialized training sessions for professionals who work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the New York City area. Achieving culturally competent training to work with the LGBT community is essential to conducting business in a city as diverse as New York. Our series of trainings has been carefully developed to offer important information, resources, and creative skills to help enhance the lives of LGBT clients. You can  learn more by watching this video from our Gender Identity Project.  ”Transgender Basics” is  a 20 minute educational film on concepts of gender and transgender people and we are showing the film to the City Clerk staff as part of our training with them.

The Center applauds the efforts of Speaker Christine Quinn and TLDEF and commends the city for taking this step to ensure that transgender New Yorkers applying for marriage licenses will be treated equally from now on, and look forward to continuing our training sessions.