Category Archives: Passenger Campaigns

Campaigns for individual passengers

Info, Passenger Campaigns, WeGotThemOut

Maeen al-Dahbali – Now It Can Be Told

Maeen is a Yemeni cis man who became an anti-child-soldier activist during the earlier years of the Yemeni civil war, subsequently becoming the civil servant with responsibility for child services in the city of Taiz. This made him the enemy of all the warring factions due to his opposition to child recruitment, and he was subsequently imprisoned and tortured. His friends secured his release, and in the year before Trans Rescue was founded Anne helped him escape his hiding place for Egypt, with her own money. This year we were able to help him obtain humanitarian asylum in France, he is now in the French asylum system, and learning French.

Why are we, an organization dedicated to helping transgender people, helping a straight cis man?  When we formed Trans Rescue we asked ourselves what to do with Maeen. We decided trans people were better than that, we weren’t abandoning someone who was in danger because he helped children. What we couldn’t reveal then was that he also performed a vital role for us as our Arabic-speaking man on the ground who helped us considerably with our work. We can not thank him enough for this service and we are thus very pleased to have been able to help him reach safety.

We delayed this report for a while to make sure of his safety.  We last described Maeen when he was still in Egypt.

Passenger Campaigns, Still In Danger

Rudy’s On Her Way, Nancy Isn’t. We Need Your Help!

Long-time followers of our social media presence will know that we’ve been supporting a pair of Egyptian trans women over the last year. Rudy and Nancy are pseudonyms for a pair who have been on the run from both their families, and the police crackdown on LGBT people.  Last October we published some of their audio testimony.

Good News, And Bad News

We have some good news about them, but also some bad news. Last week we had arranged for them to fly out of Egypt to a third country, and while Rudy has made it, Nancy was turned back at the airport. This is one of the risks in our work, that somewhere a random member of staff at an airport won’t like the look of them, and won’t let them on the plane.

Right now we have Rudy safely in the third country, and Nancy still in Egypt. We have flight tickets for both of them in about ten days to reach their final destination, but if we can’t get Nancy to the third country she won’t be on that flight.

Now Nancy Needs Your Help

So this is where you come in. We’re mounting an appeal to get Nancy out of Egypt to the third country, for which we estimate we’ll need about 1200 Euros. If we don’t manage it we lose our existing investment in her flight to safety, she’s stuck in Egypt, and we’ll have to raise even more money for a fresh extraction in future.

So please help us if you can. It’s a fairly short time to raise quite a lot of money, but I know our supporters as a generous bunch who are concerned with getting endangered trans people to safety. Please help us ensure that two people rather than one reach safety in early March.

Header image: Jonathan Payne from Ayr, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Passenger Campaigns, WeGotThemOut

Layla, From My Perspective

Jenny List

Our passengers usually travel alone, faceless beings in the global air transit system. That anonymity is their shield, because they warrant only brief inspection among the crowds hurrying for their flights. As a blind passenger Layla wasn’t so lucky, as at each step her accessibility needs had to be met. Her itinerary touched the UK, and so I met her at Stansted, tired but happy to be safe. We had a few days with a volunteer, so we took a trip to London walking round some of the sights.

She would leave from Gatwick, but here fate intervened. Sometimes the system favours us, but this time the airline didn’t like her visa and wouldn’t let her fly. That’s the reality of traveling on non-Western passports, something EU, UK, or US passport holders never see.

We were stranded in the early hours of the morning with an urgent need to think on our feet, reschedule flights, and find somewhere affordable and safe for a fortnight’s unscheduled stopover. We found a holiday cottage in a remote part of Great Britain’s west coast, extremely cheap at the start of November. The weather was wild but the cottage was comfortable, and it was nice to get to know her. She has a natural talent for languages that leaves my slow learning in the dust.

Her final flight left Manchester, again in the dark. Another motel at a motorway services gave us a few hours sleep, then she breezed through check-in with no worries at the colour of her passport. I was soon wishing her a safe journey before driving home into the night. Over my coffee at a stop in the Midlands the message came, that she was safe. She’s going to live a successful life as a confident young woman in a supportive environment.

Campaigns, Passenger Campaigns, WeGotThemOut

Blind Trans Woman Escapes Saudi Arabia

Today a young Saudi trans woman is safe in the asylum system of a European country.  Layla Al Darwish was born with the misfortune not only of being trans in the most repressive country on Earth, but with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that has made her functionally blind.

After her parents discovered she’d contacted us, her father threatened to kill her. In Saudi, this is not an idle threat. The Saudi state will do nothing against a parent who harms their child. So we had to arrange her escape quickly.

This has been a very dangerous extraction, the most difficult and complex operation we’ve completed to date, spanning from June to December 2022. A half dozen very brave people helped Layla on her way. One of them nearly had loved ones killed doing so, and Layla was pursued by family members while on the road.

Her travels took her through the Republic of Georgia. We are deeply grateful for the assistance of Equality Georgia, who partnered with us in this operation.

Campaigns, Passenger Campaigns, Uncategorized, WeGotThemOut

Women Attacked in Bundibugyo, Uganda

Bundibugyo, Uganda

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, Dec 14, 2022, the house where five trans women lived together in Bundibugyo Uganda was raided by police. Three of the women managed to flee, but two others were beaten by police and local people, screaming “Are you men or women?”

The two women were arrested and taken to the local police station where they were sexually assaulted and further beaten.

We are assisting a local organization help all five escape to the local organization’s trans shelter in a safer place.

The local organization has arranged to free the two jailed women and provided medical care. We are extracting all five to a safer place.

Work like this requires funds. If you can, please give a small gift to help this keep happening.

Support The Work

Info, Passenger Campaigns, Uncategorized, WeGotThemOut

When Trans People Are Registered.

One of our passengers has had experience with registries of trans people. In light of the recent decision in Florida registering trans minors, she thought it was important people know her story in her own words:

I’m over 30 in Hungary. Before they banned transition, I had my psychological evaluation in the way, and visited psychologists over my issues. After the ban in 2020, the psychologists told me they can not help me any more, and after a few months, some ministry’s office started to harass me on the phone, pretty much threatening me that if I attempt to transition, they will send me to jail or worse.

I reported such to the police and blocked the number.

Nearing 2021, police officers shown up at my workplace and asked me to come around to the nearby police office. The officers were apologetic and embarrassed, but “we just do what we are told to do”. In the office, some woman from a ministry (not from the police) started shouting at me about how being trans is an evil fad and corrupts children, and I should write an official paper that I am normal, not trans, never will be trans and fill in some data on it. I refused because it seemed like getting data and “I am cisgender, leave me alone”.

Then she shown the papers from my doctor, which they pretty much confiscated from the hospital. “Yes, I had a time when I was unsure, but I am sure now. Leave me alone.”

So as I left, a police officer called me aside and apologized in the name of the Hungarian police force, stating that this is from the ministry and they have to do this, smaller office, so they are doing what they are told to do. I left anyways.

The phone harassment did not stopped and near the end of 2021, officers came around again, but they just shrugged when I told them they got the wrong guy.

Early 2022, Trans Rescue helped me out of Hungary to a safe zone in the EU. They gave me a temporary house until I got on my feet and legally could stay in a country.

The harassing calls did not stopped, the Hungarian officials still tried to threaten me that if I ever return to Hungary with a changed gender, they will hit me “with all the power of the law”.

She, and we, thought it was important to get this out, but for obvious reasons she was reluctant to release it on her own.

Project Campaigns, Still In Danger, Uncategorized

Trans Woman Assaulted in Kenya

May 25, Mombasa

Rita, a trans woman in coastal Kenya, was assaulted on May 15 at her restaurant chef job, after the restaurant owner learned she was trans. He and another employee attacked her, probably giving her a concussion and skull fracture.

The police came and arrested Rita, charged her with “impersonation” and “shaming” the restaurant. She was denied medical care, despite the severity of her injuries, and was placed in a cell with men. During the night she fended off a sexual assault.

Trans Rescue provided funds and some local trans women (some of the group starting Eden House) bailed her out. Trans Rescue also provided funds for medical and psychological care.

Anne Ogborn, a Trans Rescue staff member, said, “We’re particularly anxious to get Rita away from this area, since we fear she’ll be blackmailed now.”

As one of the women helping Rita said, “is it wrong to ask for a Job surely why are some people so heartless?”

We’re withholding the name of the restaurant and it’s owner to prevent retaliation against Rita. Rita is an alias.

Follow up. Rita collapsed during a follow up medical appointment and is currently in hospital. Trans Rescue is trying to raise 2000 EU to pay for medical care and to get Rita and the group of trans women she lives with out of the area on an emergency basis.

DonATE TO HELP Rita
Campaigns, Passenger Campaigns, WeGotThemOut

Rayan – Saudi Arabia

Last year Rayan’s situation seemed hopeless.

As a ‘female’ in his home country of Saudi Arabia, he had little control over his life.

His wealthy, powerful, and criminal father ruled the family with an iron fist.

He’d been threatened with death both by his father and mother, been abused by family members,

subjected to medical mistreatment and conversion therapy, and was in a country whose government would not only not protect him, but would actively help his abusers maintain control.

Rayan had, seemingly, little chance of getting out.

A break came when the family moved to Turkey. He was still trapped in the family compound, but at least we could reach the compound.

Rayan did an incredible job of carefully preparing his escape. He started going to a gym in the compound, and carrying a change of clothing in a backpack. He located his passport in his father’s desk.

On the chosen day, he slipped into his parent’s room and took the passport. He was committed now – if his father discovered he’d taken the passport, he’d be killed. He’d already assembled the small collection of things he’d take with him.

He stepped out, as he always did, to go to the gym.

A TransEmigrate agent appeared in a car. Rayan got into the car and disappeared into the crowded streets of Turkey.

He was away, but still had to get out of Turkey. His family could easily track him down anywhere in the country.

We flew him to a country in North Africa. He stayed there, in hiding, for over a month. Any day his family could ‘redeem their honor’, as they saw it, by killing him. They were actively looking.

We tried to get him into Europe, but he wasn’t allowed to board the plane at the last minute. He seemed stuck.

We arranged a scheme that would make John LeCarre proud. There were fake companies, fake contracts, and even a fake warehouse full of fake produce. Another of our volunteers, in real life a programmer, risked her own freedom.

Rayan is now in Canada.

It was all worth it. Most people in immigration detention in a foreign country would be frightened. Rayan called us with happy news.

One day it was, “I learned to play ping pong today!”

One day it was, “A guard let me try playing his guitar. I want to learn!”

Rayan is now out, settled down, and preparing to get on with his life. He’s taken up boxing, and is building up his new testosterone muscles.

He plays the guitar badly and is fixing up his small apartment.

Some details of events and circumstances have been changed for the safety of Rayan and our agents. Rayan is an alias.. Photo courtesy IBA Boxing

Campaigns, Passenger Campaigns, Still In Danger

Walim – Egypt

Engineers are born, not made, it seems.

Some people are in love with machines and will tinker endlessly if allowed.

Sadly, in some places people seen as women still aren’t allowed. Often our work at Trans Rescue isn’t about fighting transphobia as much as it is about fighting sexism.

Walim is a 19 year old Egyptian trans man. He loves machinery and electronics and reads about it endlessly. One of our volunteers spends a lot of time teaching him electronics over the internet.

His father is driven crazy by his love of gadgets and beats him regularly for it and for doing ‘boy’ things.

When he cut his hair short, his father beat him savagely.

We desperately need to get him out before he’s killed. We’ve made one attempt recently, but need funds to make a second attempt.

January 4, 2023

We’re happy to announce that Walim is no longer in Egypt. He was extracted in a difficult operation on January 4, 2023. He is in a safe location, and will be moved to a final destination as that becomes possible.

Some details of events and circumstances have been changed for the safety of Walim and our agents. Walim is an alias.

Campaigns, Passenger Campaigns, Still In Danger

Ife – life in Nigeria

Ife is a beautiful young (21) trans woman from Nigeria.

She’s surviving on street hustles.

Five minutes talking with her and you realize how intelligent she is. She’s well read and can talk about gender theory like a western baby trans. As we discuss plans to get her out, she emphasizes, over and over, how important it is to her to get to somewhere she can continue her education.

When she first contacted us she was living in poor conditions. Soldiers came to her flat and threatened her, and neighbors were harassing her, so she had trouble entering or leaving the flat.

We moved her to a safe house, but have been having trouble getting her out of Nigeria. She once called it ‘her never ending vacation’.

A family member caught up with her at the safe house, and we’ve had to move her to another city.

She can’t really pass as a boy, so it’s particularly difficult to get her out.

She’s interested in languages and wants to live a normal life. We’d like to get her to a European country where she has family.

We have a scheme to get her out, but it’s going very slowly. It’s very hard to get a visa to a safe place from Nigeria.

Please help us get Ife out.

Some details of events and circumstances have been changed for the safety of Ife and our agents. ‘Ife’ is an alias. The image above is a stock photo of an actor.