It’s been a hectic but transformative year for Trans Rescue with a lot of stress and plenty of ups and downs, but we’ve come through it and we’re delighted to be able to say that with your help we’ve been able to help over 140 people to safety so far in 2023.
In this review we’re bringing you the work we’ve done this year, something on the passengers we have in transit, some good news about passengers who’ve made it to safety, and news of our upcoming campaigns. Keep reading, and find out what we’ve been up to.
America
It’s less than a year now to the US Presidential election. Flag image: Mrrebel1453, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The original impetus behind the formation of our predecessor organisation TransEmigrate was to provide support for American trans people in escaping the increasing number of anti-trans laws in the USA creating a hostile environment in which to be trans. With just over a year until the next US Presidential election we have returned to this topic, launching a campaign to equip American trans people with the support and knowledge they need to reach safety.
With an estimated 1.6 million transgender Americans their numbers are too large for us to help each of them individually. However, because an American passport remains one of the strongest in the world trans American’s needs are very different from the people in developing countries who have occupied much of our attention until now.
Our campaign has started by persuading American trans people to apply for a passport, and will continue by helping them explore the escape options available in the likely event of a far-right government. Without this work we think escape will only be a realistic option for the wealthy, so our aim is to lower the hurdles to the point at which it becomes practical for many more. There are a huge number of American trans people who we think can get themselves out if they have the right information and encouragement, these are the target audience we are trying to reach.
East Africa
The deteriorating situation Uganda, summarised in a headline.
By far our biggest operation this year started in the spring, when we found ourselves the only outside LGBT organization with access to a network on the ground in Uganda as the government there enacted a series of measures criminalizing LGBT people.
We had an extensive presence in Kenya already, and had helped a few trans people in late 2022 in Uganda. So we were, awkwardly, one of the few global organizations with an existing program in Uganda. This placed us in the position of taking what would turn out to be a prominent position in the movement to help Ugandan LGBT people flee. We were rather a small organization to be doing this.
We obtained a generous 40K Euro grant from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expand our existing trans haven, Eden house, in Nakuru, Kenya. Sadly, the shelter was raided in August by Kenyan police due to the presence of LGBT people. We divided the residents of Eden House into smaller groups and set up safe houses in other cities.
Annie, our director, took a group of Egyptians who were in the house to Tanzania, while Arya, our shelter manager, took a group of Kenyans to the coast. We established a new, smaller shelter for some of the Ugandans, while others moved in with friends. We have ongoing costs to support those passengers who remain in Kenya.
Having now become the target of the Kenyan police, in the end we had to get most of our staff out of Kenya. Arya had to flee Kenya herself. She’s currently in a third country and we’re attempting to relocate her to a permanent place .
Passengers In Transit
We currently have passengers in transit across several regions of the world, in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Americas. In some cases our role is an advisory one for passengers who are self-funding, we are helping others directly with their extraction, and a few more are being supported by us in mid-journey.
Coming Up
Our America campaign will include a series of videos on our YouTube channel alongside more grass-roots activities. Monkeys: John Snape, CC BY-SA 3.0.
As we move towards 2024 we’ll be continuing to work on our America campaign, something which is likely to intensify with the progress of their election.
This new project will involve extensive writing, video production and post production work. If any of you have an interest in helping with the campaign in that way, please drop us a note.
Meanwhile we have our existing in-transit passengers to continue on their way, our growing cadre of former passengers to support in various ways, and our continuing work helping new passengers.
A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of an impromptu meeting of five former passengers. In the group most of the former passengers were bright young adults with an impressive array of credentials who will be contributors to the communities in which they now find themselves. This work can be emotionally hard, dangerous, and exhausting, but moments like these keep us going.
We could not do this work without our donors and supporters. We thank you, and we hope that this has given you some ideas of what we have been doing over the last year.
Happy holidays and a happy and safe new year for all of you,
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.
There are some subjects that everyone knows a lot about, but the “knowledge” they have is instead received opinion which bears only a passing resemblance to the truth. As a non-profit which deals with refugees we’re right in the thick of just such a subject, because everybody has a lot of received opinions about asylum seekers. If we had ten dollars for every hot take we’ve heard on the subject we’d probably be better funded, but as it is we’re still operating on a shoestring. So perhaps it’s time to look at the subject from our perspective. We’re not asylum seekers but we deal on a daily basis with the system on a global scale, and we know something about how it works from a first-hand perspective.
First, A Little History
The MS St. Louis was a ship which transported a complement of Jewish refugees across the Atlantic in 1939, only to be turned back by Cuba and the USA. Many of those onboard died in the holocaust.Public Domain.
So, just why can people claim asylum? The answer to that in today’s form goes back to the years after World War II, when the inconvenient truth for many countries was that before the war they’d turned away people who later became victims of the Nazis. That and the legal status of huge numbers of refugees from the war all across Europe and elsewhere led to the UN adopting the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951, which defines a refugee and sets out a list of provisions to ensure their protection. The important point to take away from the 1951 convention is that a refugee has the right to claim asylum in a country if they are standing on that country’s soil. This protection was put in place to stop states merely pushing refugees back over their borders, instead they have to process their asylum applications. This forms the basis of the asylum system, however there are other treaties such as the Dublin Regulation which limit so-called asylum shopping around European countries, that modify the framework under which it operates.
The Bibby Stockholm is an accommodation barge hired by the British government and moored at Portland to house asylum seekers. Ashley Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0.
A country then has to process the applications of the asylum seekers who arrive, and to do that they stick those people in camps or hostels or asylum seeker centres while they do it. The purpose of processing the application is to determine whether or not the person is a danger, and whether or not they are a genuine refugee, as of course a percentage applying for asylum are under no threat and are just seeking a better life. The problem with all this though is that the process takes a while. It’s not unusual in European countries for someone to spend years in the system without a decision, and thus you’ll find those asylum seeker centres overflowing with people. As an example according to the Refugee Council in the last year the UK has had a shade under 80000 applications, and holds a little over 175000 people awaiting a decision in an array of camps, contracted hotels, and even ships. This in turn becomes something for politicians to make their capital from, and here begins the problem with the way countries deal with asylum seekers.
Why Asylum Seekers Are Great For Politicians
The UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak puts anti-asylum-seeker rhetoric front and centre in his campaigning. UK Prime Minister, CC BY 2.0.
Having tens or hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in camps is a great tool for politicians, because they can use the prospect of lots of foreigners to scare pearl-clutching middle-class voters and secure their votes. This is universal, whether politicians are left or right, in government or in opposition, they all wave the asylum seeker stick when it suits them. This creates a sense of threat from asylum seekers in the population that’s way out of proportion to their real numbers, but perhaps more importantly for the asylum seekers themselves it gives the politicians few incentives to do anything about the problem. Put simply, there are votes in having a bunch of asylum seekers to scare people with, but no votes in spending money to deal with them.
All those hot takes build up then, about how the flood of people is unsustainable and the asylum seekers are being given five star accommodation at the expense of hard working people, or that they’re all economic migrants anyway and none of them are real refugees.. It’s compounded by an intentionally-curated lack of understanding of the 1951 convention or the Dublin Regulation, and the inevitable result is a more authoritarian and rightward political shift. It’s not as though something can’t be done about the problem, but it suits the politicians for it to remain.
So. What’s The Fix?
If there’s a fix for the asylum problem then, what is it? Certainly not abandoning parts of the 1951 convention as the British Conservatives are toying with doing, as tinkering with basic human rights law affects everyone, not just the people you don’t like. Instead there are two fairly straightforward policies which can deal with it. The first is to pour money into asylum processing such that it becomes much faster and that economic migrants can be more readily identified, and the second is to invest in overseas aid with the aim of improving the prospects of people who might otherwise try the asylum system as economic migrants. Sadly neither of these can be used to scare voters, so the chances of either of them happening are slim.
We hope then that this piece has given you something to think about. If you hear one of those uninformed hot takes or perhaps you might have been tempted to give one, maybe now you know who really wants you to hold those views. You probably don’t consider yourself a supporter of the far right and neither do your friends, so if you hear anyone tempted by this gateway drug it’s worth knowing something about what lies behind it.
Though our operations over the last year have had a focus in the developing world, the situation closer to home for us in countries such as the USA has been of significant concern. An inevitable descent into some form of fascism seems all-too-possible, and since we trans people are the scapegoat of the moment it’s not difficult to see where this is going. In case any Americans remain in doubt we’d like to direct them to the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 blueprint for a newly elected Republican president. Entitled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”, it sets out a chilling path in which a president gains near-dictatorial powers through abuse of the federal system backed up by a supreme court packed with their yes-men. They can then criminalise being transgender at the federal level and erase us from society, effectively making any “safe states” irrelevant.
Over the past year then, we’ve urged people to not wait for that end, but to get out while they still can. Our biggest concern is that if it’s all left to the last minute as a newly-elected far-right President prepares for his inauguration, only the wealthy trans people will succeed in escaping and the rest will be left for the Republicans to come after. Unlike many of our passengers who will be denied access to international travel based simply on their nationality, transgender Americans still have one of the most powerful passports in the world. They have options, something that will disappear abruptly when they are criminalised and their documentation is invalidated.
The Only Luxury You Have Is A Bit Of Time
The trouble is, we can only keep saying this and urging people to plan their exit, we can’t airlift every individual trans American to safety as we simply don’t have the resources. We’ve taken some grief for this, as people shoot the messenger rather than listening to the message. It comes down to this, getting out in some form is not out of reach when you have the luxury of time, but as the time becomes more limited, so does the chance of escaping.
There’s a lot of nationalistic guff about this document representing freedom, but curiously for trans people escaping a far-right apocalypse, it means just that. Cytis, CC0.
As a first step, if you haven’t already, get yourself a passport. Only 37% of Americans have one, don’t be one of the 63% who are stuck in a fascist society with no way out. It costs $130, which we know isn’t a sum everyone will have handy, but here’s where the time comes in. You have the luxury of time, use some of it to get that cash together. When it’s the document that will save your life, isn’t it worth some sacrifices to save for it?
So you’re getting a passport, what now? Your whole life should become an exercise in planning for a future as an immigrant somewhere else. What are your skills, what do you have to offer another country who might take you? Contrary to popular belief you don’t have to work in finance or computer programming to emigrate, a huge number of countries have skill shortages in much more mundane areas. If you can’t find one of those visas there are digital nomad visas, or even ancestry visas if Grandad came from the old country. We can’t hold your hand here, you will need to become an avid student of international visas. Every country’s immigration department has a website listing what’s on offer, and it’s up to you to spend your time trawling through them.
Better the owl chasing you now than the fascist state doing so in the future.
Having started looking, what skills can you learn? Can you come up with a location-independent way to earn a living? How many languages can you speak? Anglophones tend to be bad at learning other languages, so it’s an easy way to give yourself an edge. Sometimes visas even hinge on speaking the language, as an example Japan has one for agricultural workers which requires a high standard of Japanese. We know from our own experience here at Trans Rescue that language learning is hellishly difficult, but with apps such as Duolingo being only a download away at least it’s never been easier to start.
Here’s the bottom line then. Only the most blinkered of individuals could claim that there’s no threat of America lurching over the brink into fascism, or that trans people wouldn’t be first against the wall in that eventuality. There’s no credible future in somehow seeing off the military industrial complex of a fascist government with an AR-15 popgun, so your best chance of avoiding the inevitable is to get out. Time is running out for that to happen, so the earlier you take action the better your chances of survival. We can offer basic advice and we’ve done our best to share as much as we can here, but we can’t hold your hand through the whole process.
That’s up to you.
Header image: Alt-right members preparing to enter Emancipation Park, Charlottesville, ‘Unite the Right’ rally, 12 August 2017. Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0.
It’s an unfortunate but inevitable side-effect of running a non-profit working in developing countries, that we find ourselves the target of scammers who impersonate desperate passengers in order to extract money from us. Some of their stories sound believable at first, others fall apart after asking simple questions, and the rest, well, let’s just say that some would-be scammers have fertile imaginations. We’ve become pretty good at spotting them, by analyzing the many available information sources, by investigating their stories, and by experience and intuition. To provide readers with an introduction to this facet of our day-to-day work then, we’re sharing with you a recent scam attempt and a little of our investigation.
The message as we received it
The message from the scammer. We’ve concealed names and locations.
We received a message on Telegram, which you can read in the screenshot. It has a set of pictures, and the following text:
Good evening, I’m [redacted] based in [redacted]. Sometime last year my village mate helped me set up my own community through transrescue and that’s how I got your number. She is [redacted], right now she is out of reach. The reason I have contacted you directly, we are going to [big city] reasons being the community here does not want us any more you understand right? I have 2 trans men 2 intersex kids and 3 gays. Let me get straight to the point we do community service some programme [redacted] organised for us bead making and weaving, even bed making. We just sold all that stuff and rented a house in [redacted], it’s 4 bedroom. Local chief wants us to go away ASAP, that why I’m here, can you help us relocated? I need to get a lorry carry all our belongings to [big city] that’s all.
Along with the text was a series of images, of which we’ve posted a screenshot. We’ll refer to them as images 1 through 5 in the following analysis, but first of all it’s worth looking at the story itself.
How it all falls apart
The images sent to us by the scammer. Presented in very low resolution for illustrative purposes only, these are the property of their respective copyright holders.
This was one of those scam attempts which caused us to smell a rat when we first opened it, as we can tell you from experience, running a house as a refuge for queer people is no small undertaking. If someone we had been associated with were doing that, we’d know about it. We’d have almost certainly been financing it, and we’d know the people within it by both name and face. The idea that the person mentioned in the message could have been running such an operation without our knowledge is not credible. In addition the industries suggested, bead work and basket making, seem calculated to appeal to an imagined European idea of what Africans might do. As enterprises for a queer refuge, they stretch credibility.
Turning to the images, our attention was first attracted to image 5, the dormitory. It’s what we’d recognise as basic but comfortable accommodation, and it might just have passed muster but for a few details. Have a look at that window first, it’s a unitary double-glazed window placed in a deep embrasure, those walls are thick. It’s simply not an African window or building but a European one designed for a cold climate. Even the beds and interior aren’t quite right, in that while pine isn’t unknown in the country this is supposed to be from, it would be unusual to see so much of it.
As you might expect, we turned to a reverse image search to confirm our suspicions. The dormitory in image 5 does indeed provide comfortable accommodation, however it’s not in Africa but in Ireland. It’s at the Black Sheep Hostel, Killarney, and it’s repeated across many accommodation booking websites.
This is a frequently updated status page for those leaving Uganda. Current update 07:38 9 May, 2023
We currently have NO funds to assist in leaving Uganda. We CAN offer advice and assistance if you have funds. We CAN get help to you if you are jailed in Uganda.
If you have medical training, are LGBT, and want to flee, talk to us.
If we are providing you services you should have direct contact with us. If someone is asking money of you or will not allow you to contact us they are a scammer. Our agents will always be introduced after you have contacted us.
We will never ask you for money. We might ask you to pay your own expenses if you can (for example, buying your own bus ticket).
We’re seeing some organizers offering shelters for LGBT folks (particularly trans women) on the run, then being controlling. Don’t end up tafficked, in a brothel, or controlled by someone. Do not give the organizer your passport or other document “to keep safe”
Caution to those leaving Uganda – we are seeing some evidence of people trafficking. If people want to put you in a situation where they control you, ask yourself if you’re safe and if you want to do that. Often portrayed as “for your safety”
Do not delay getting out because you don’t have a passport. National ID is OK . You need a covid certificate and a yellow fever vaccination.
The border is fairly open. You can physically get out if you need to.
Many news organizations are reporting that Donald Trump will be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney this coming Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
Hospitals, fire stations, the US Military, and police are gearing up for unrest. This NBC News report says the cops are on high alert. Jon Cooper, Biden’s campaign manager, asked on Twitter if followers expected rioting or unrest if Trump was arrested. Replies from hospital workers and people living near military bases report they are gearing up.
Trans people are potential targets of violence. Don’t be paranoid or do things that harm you long term, but there are reasonable precautions you can take. You’ll have to weigh the cost of any of these actions against any safety they will bring. If you’re unemployed, going camping may be no big deal. If you’re going to be fired, maybe consider if it’s worth it.
Some things you can do to protect yourself:
If you have camping gear and the weather and your job allow, consider taking some trans folks and going camping for a few days. While encountering yahoos is always a possibility, you’re unlikely to discover an organized mob at your local KOA.
If you’re staying, lay in groceries – get some staples that survive without refrigeration – rice, canned goods. And just do the week’s shopping this weekend so you’re not having to do it in the middle of chaos.
Get fuel for the camping stove and Coleman lantern. Fill containers with water. Refill your prescriptions.
Check your bugout bag. Replace anything that’s been taken out.
Gas the car up and keep it full. If you have a chance, on Monday, it might be a good day to take the car in and have the oil changed, tires checked, and other routine servicing you’d do before a road trip.
Minimize going out. Keep an eye on the news, and use common sense. The evening after Trump has been arrested, think about security before going to Club Uranus and getting blind drunk.
Think about visibility. It’s been our best tool over the years, but don’t become a victim because you weren’t balancing danger and visibility.
That said, do celebrate! It’s been a long road.
Protect each other. Make sure the unpopular girl at support group has your number. Call around your local trans community and see what others need. If you are, or know, the locally visible spokesperson for the community, invite them to stay with you a few days in case local yahoos have doxxed them.
If you think you might have to flee, get ready to bug out. I’m sure someone is going to yell ‘Trans Rescue is telling people to bug out’. We are definitely not. We are telling people to be on heightened alert.
Form affinity groups. Have a small team that shares resources. One person has camping gear. Another has a good car.
Work across class. If you are a middle class person who always played by the rules, your most valuable group member might be a streetwise person, and vice versa.
Make sure there’s a clear way to make decisions. An argument that leads to the group breaking up is not good.
Get together and make sure you’re all agreed on general strategy. If half the group believes all trans people should have a gun, and half think that’s a recipe for disaster, split the group. Similarly, check in if anyone uses marijuana, is everyone OK with that? Have honest discussions about money.
Be cautious in who you accept rides/housing/etc from. Remember our enemies would love to get you in a dependent position, and on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.
Let cis friends, employers, etc know that you are concerned. Enlist them as allies if you can, but avoid having your life depend on them. When the fash knock down the door and demand to know where the trannies are hiding, their priority will be their own safety.
This is written not to promote fear, but rather preparedness. Being ready and feeling stupid after is better than not being ready and feeling stupid after.
There is no evidence to suggest that a trans genocide is coming this week in America. It’s important to avoid spreading unfounded fears and spreading panic. But it’s definitely a week to think about your options.
Header image: Becker1999 from Grove City, OH, CC BY 2.0.
When you’ve got to get out, and fast, you need a bug-out bag containing the essentials for your escape. What do you need to think about when packing yours? Everybody’s bug-out plan will be different to suit their needs, we’re here to set you thinking about what you’ll need to do.
Here in 2023, trans people are under relentless attack, particularly in the USA but in other countries too. You don’t have to be a genius to see where this is going, there are people who want to eliminate us, and given the chance they’ll follow through on that. All your planning for an orderly exit can go up in smoke if events unfold too quickly, so it’s time to also take a look at planning for a quick exit just in case. And for that, I’ll start with a mid-September day at the height of the pandemic.
When It Was My Turn, I Made All The Mistakes
My plan to find a quiet place under a tree for a few hours fell impossibly short of the mark.
Back in 2020 I had a very unstable domestic situation, eventually culminating in my being made homeless going into the second UK COVID lockdown. When things began to go awry I packed a bug-out bag for what I judged the likely risk would be, and in the event I made such a series of mistakes that they should serve as a lesson to others.
My threat model was that things would take a temporary turn for the worse, and I would have to clear out for the day. The British countryside in September is pleasant enough, so I packed for a day outdoors. I would hang out in a quiet and shady corner, where I was going to have a brew and eat nut bars while I sat with my laptop and did my work. At the end of the day I’d slide back in unnoticed, and that would be that. In the end when it came, it was so unexpected and ferocious that I didn’t have a chance to grab my bug-out bag and I didn’t feel safe going back that evening. All I could do was run for my car, which is why I found myself that afternoon in my local megastore buying essentials. I was fortunate, I had my mobile phone and my handbag, and a friend offered me her sofa to sleep on, but it could have been so different. I avoided sleeping in my car with no food or money by a whisker, and I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.
So, where did I go wrong? I packed for too specific a scenario, I didn’t properly anticipate my threat model, and perhaps most importantly, my bug-out bag wasn’t in the right place for me to grab it when I needed it. You can learn from this just as I have, you have a better line on the threat model, you can plan much better what you will do, and you can place what you need, where you will need it.
A Bug-Out Plan Is What You Need
The first thing to say is that a bug-out bag is not there as part of a long-term and well-considered extraction master plan. It’s there for emergencies, when you need to drop everything and run. So part of it is the bag itself, but you should also consider it as a component in a greater bug-out plan. And don’t forget what you might have to leave behind, are there any other arrangements to be made? As an example, if you have a cat, arrange in advance for their welfare with a cis friend in the event you have to run. Or if you won’t be able to return, arrange with your friends what will happen to your possessions.
Our threat model is depressingly obvious in this case, that it’s going to in some form become dangerous to be where you are because you are a trans person. One of the things you’ll have to think about is how long you will be away, which will affect what you decide is essential, and thus what those other arrangements should be.
Having considered the threat model, next up think about your bug-out plan. What are you going to do and where are you going to go? Will you take shelter with a friend, use motels, sleep in your car, or what? Are you heading to the next city, another state or province, or will you leave the country? And how are you going to do it, in your car, by plane, or by some other method? How much is it all going to cost, and have you got enough cash stashed away? Think in terms of the short, medium, and long terms, where will you be tonight and how will you get there, then the next night, followed by the next week, and so on. Once you have a pretty good idea of where you are going to go and how you’re going to do it, come up with an alternative plan for each stage. Things will go wrong along the way, and in those events you’ll thank yourself for coming up with a backup plan.
There’s More To A Bag Than Just A Bag
We know our threat model then, and we’ve made a plan. Are we finally at the bag? Not quite, because a bug-out bag isn’t always a single physical bag. Instead it’s a series of components which might be in the same place but don’t have to be. Loosely, consider what you take with you as things to have on your person, things you might carry away with you, and things to cache somewhere else to pick up once you’re away from immediate danger. Where do these things have to be to be of most use to you?
In my bug-out above I got one thing right, I had my car keys, phone, and payment card with me. These are the things you have on your person, and for instance you might want to add some cash, your passport, or a supply of your medication to them.
Where I went horribly wrong was in the bag I was going to take away with me, In my day pack I had a waterproof groundsheet, camp stove and coffee fixings, my laptop and some trail food, but hadn’t considered I might need the necessities for a night away. Then to compound it all I left it somewhere I couldn’t easily grab it, when I should have put it in my car. You will certainly dodge my mistakes, but think more carefully than I did and try to avoid pitfalls of your own.
If you’ve planned things correctly, now you should be equipped to get away from home with the essentials, and you’d be safely on your way. But stop and think for a moment, are you carrying too much? Can you keep your immediate exit safer by carrying less, and caching some of the more bulky things with a friend somewhere for later retrieval? There are some things here that you definitely shouldn’t have on your person, for example ADHD meds which require certificates to cross international borders, or professional qualifications and diplomas which can be a red flag for immigration staff. Maybe a friend can store and forward a bag of your stuff, or you could even stop by a UPS depot on your way, so you don’t have to weigh yourself down.
If you were hoping for an exhaustive list of what to put in your bug-out bag as part of this article, then we’re sorry to have disappointed you. But with luck we’ve set you thinking about the things you’ll need to consider in case you need to make a quick exit, and made that eventuality a lot safer for you if you ever find yourself in that position. Stay safe everyone.
Last year we published a piece here entitled “The USA is sliding into fascism. How to get out”. Behind the sensational title lay the worrying truth that we believe that the USA is heading towards a very dark place indeed, and that we would thus urge all American trans people to either get out or make a plan for getting out. But the USA isn’t our only country of concern that has embarked on a path away from being a safe place for trans people.
Campaigns such as this one are part of the UK’s ever-growing atmosphere of transphobia. (Rubbish computer, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Next on our list is the United Kingdom, a country which has over the last decade witnessed an explosion of institutionalised transphobic hate speech from within the media and in high-level politics coupled with a Conservative government that has swung progressively towards the far right. We have seen attacks on trans healthcare and particularly that for trans youth, worrying noises around the idea of bathroom bills, and most recently as this is being written the news that the London government will suppress Scottish gender recognition reform and place trans female prisoners in male prisons. Their continued erosion of human rights legislation as well as projected withdrawal from the European Court of Human Rights is of particular concern, and given that the transphobes have also infiltrated the opposition parties we expect to still be concerned for the situation of British trans people following the next general election.
Is It Time To Get Out, Or Just To Plan?
This thing won’t get you thrown off a plane. (Swapnil1101, Public domain),
Given that the events outlined in the previous paragraph paint such a bleak picture for British democracy, it might seem as though it would be imperative for trans people to leave. For all that though, we’re not quite at the point of advising a quick flight and we are not providing financial support to help British people. If there’s a silver lining in the cloud it’s that on-the-ground safety has not yet reached a crisis point, and despite a worrying increase in reported anti-LGBT hate crime the UK is still largely a safe place in which to be trans when compared to the countries in which we do most of our work. British TV news channels may unquestioningly give a platform to TERFs campaigning for us to be excluded from the Equality Act, but they do not approach the excesses of their American counterparts in platforming armed far-right militias and calling for our lynching.
British passport holders will never be refused access to an airliner merely because of their nationality, as would for example a citizen from a country associated with refugees in the minds of the authorities. Thus we do not immediately anticipate a situation in which the act of leaving would become impossible, as it is for a Syrian or a Yemeni. So for now it’s better to have somewhere to live and some means of income in the UK than it is to be penniless and homeless in another country.
Based on what we’ve said in the last two paragraphs then, we’d advise any UK person considering leaving to plan ahead and do their homework rather than booking a ticket and running without considering what happens next. Start at the very beginning and assess the threat level at which a move would become necessary, and use the intervening time to plan an exit with less need for huge resources. There’s the old analogy that a frog in water that is heated gently enough will not notice the temperature rise and jump out, instead boiling to death. Assessing the threat level means being aware enough to jump out of the water before it becomes too hot, and not being the boiling frog.
Putting The Wheels In Motion
Perhaps the easiest way to start your plan is to talk to the people around you about your need to get out. Your partner or family for example should be prepared for your plans, and understand their necessity. If it reaches a point at which you have to make the move then by doing this early you will have already ensured that those around you do not become impediments. Remember, the cis people around you will not be the ones under threat.
We all got our COVID vaccinations, make sure yours is up to date!
The next most easy piece of preparation is to ensure that you have the appropriate documentation. A passport is the obvious one, as is a COVID vaccine certification. Make sure you renew your British passport.
Further to that, look at your family tree. Do you have grandparents from another safe country, and can you apply for that passport? If so you’ve won the jackpot, because there’s your way out.
With those easy steps out of the way, it’s evident that whatever path you take will require some financing as well as careful planning. The good news here is two-fold: not all paths are as unaffordable as you think they are, and for now you have the luxury of time in which to start planning the monetary side as well as the details of your move. Saving money is hard, especially on a low income, but if you can find any way to do so, put it into action.
Then, and perhaps most importantly, you should think about what happens once you have left the UK. How are you going to live, how are you going to support yourself? Are your skills transportable, would you be able to get a job somewhere else? Great news if you’re an in-demand software developer, but not necessarily cause for despair if you’re unsure how you’d manage this. You have the luxury of some time, use it to learn what you can. Consider everything, from something you can sell on Fiverr upwards, and try to develop it into something while you’re still in the UK. If nothing else, improving your employability works in the UK too.
Now you have no ties, you’ve got a financial plan, and you’re busy honing a skill. You’re ready to decide on where you’re going. At this point, we have two pieces of advice. Be realistic, and be prepared to discard your preconceptions.
Why “Be realistic”? The trans rumour mill is a great source of disinformation and half-truths, so it’s very easy to fall into unrealistic beliefs as to what might work. Probably the example we hear most often is that a Brit would be able to claim asylum in another country, something which sadly is not the case. Perhaps it has its roots in racist British popular media coverage of asylum seekers, in which it is portrayed as an easy process which any ne’er-do-well from another country can just turn up and receive their free benefits. In fact, the asylum system exists for the aid of people in far more desperate situations than that of British trans people, and destination countries are without exception very picky about who they will grant it to. There are mutual safety treaties between the UK and the countries you are probably thinking about, so for example if you were to turn up in an EU country and try to claim asylum your claim would be dismissed simply because there is a defined presumption that the UK is a safe place. Much as we would like it to be different, UK trans people don’t have any special status, so trying an asylum claim would certainly result in your swift return. Worse, it could even endanger future claims when matters are worse for UK trans people, by establishing a legal precedent. So be realistic, don’t try edge cases which will certainly fail.
Next, we said “Be prepared to discard your preconceptions”. This is something we encounter on a daily basis from people in far worse situations than you are in. As an example we had a passenger in a troubled Middle Eastern country who was hiding from the police as a trans person and would have certainly been killed if arrested. We had the ability to get them to our safe house in Kenya but there was next-to-no chance that their passport would be accepted on a flight to Europe. They refused point-blank to go to Kenya, citing beliefs about African countries which we can only describe as rooted in racism. The reality of a Kenya in which it’s possible for a group of trans people to live in safety was too far a leap for their preconceptions, and they could not go there. The point for you to take on board here is that we all have preconceptions about other parts of the world, and sometimes they’re based on half-truths or outright falsehood. When considering destinations you’ll all have a list of places you’ll consider “safe”, but be prepared to consider the unexpected. For example, was Argentina on your list? Look up the legal status of trans people in that country, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Where Can You Go?
By now, we think you should have some idea of the steps you should take as you consider a move. You’ll know that it’s possible, you’ll have some ideas of how you’ll go forward, and you’re prepared to consider the wider world on its merits. It’s now time to talk about the question we’re usually asked first. Where can you go?
As the clamour for Scottish independence becomes ever louder, could it offer us a way to safety? (LornaMCampbell, CC BY-SA 4.0)
For someone looking at leaving the UK it might be odd to start instead by talking about not getting out, but moving within the country. But since it’s the easiest option of all it’s worth talking about. At this point you have to pull out your crystal ball and make a bet with yourself about what constitutional changes are likely to happen to the country in the aftermath of a very rocky Brexit road. We’re a country of constituent nations, and only a fool wouldn’t recognise that there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be a country of fewer constituent nations before too long. It’s ironic that the constitutional crisis which might end the Union brewing as this is being written has the issue of trans rights at its centre, but it should serve to remind any non-Scottish UK trans people that maybe life north of the border in an independent Scotland could offer a safe future.
Would Wales follow a Scottish lead? Almost certainly, but we’d expect a lot more foot-dragging from London so not in the same time frame. Meanwhile Northern Ireland is politically as delicate as ever, but a place with an easily crossable border to the Republic of Ireland and an inexorable demographic change in progress from Protestant to Catholic. Of the options we’d go for Scotland, but maybe we’ve given you something to think about.
Having exhausted the UK, nearest to us are the EU countries. We may no longer have the freedom of movement we had before Brexit, but we’re still not without possibilities. Of these, top of the list is our closest neighbour, the Republic of Ireland.The status of Northern Ireland post-Brexit may be a roaring trashfire, but the Common Travel Area provisions that predate the EU remain in place allowing citizens of either country to live and work in the other. This makes the Republic of Ireland the easiest destination country for British trans people in terms of immigration, but as with every destination, there’s a catch. Ireland is a lovely place with a good legal status for trans people, but it has many of the same social problems as the UK including astronomical housing costs. If you’re crossing the Irish Sea, make especially sure you have meaningful plans to cover your work and income. Also, for the love of God, read up on the past hundred years of Anglo-Irish history.
The world can still be your oyster. (Intisar Ali, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Beyond the British Isles, it makes more sense to talk about types of visa and what you should do than it does to list specific countries. Returning to the paragraph about preconceptions, it’s not for us to dictate which countries are safe or not, because while it’s pretty easy to name the least safe countries it isn’t for us to impose any of those preconceptions on you. Look for an accepting cultural and legal environment as you make your list. So back to visas, and here there are plenty of choices. They all require different levels of sacrifice, but among them are options for all levels. We’ll try to list a few below, but this is by no means exhaustive and you will only find what you want by combing the immigration websites of the countries in question.
First up: the employment visa. Not just for high-flyers headhunted by multinationals or even for those lucky enough to be able to land an overseas employer prepared to do the visa legwork, there are still countries offering work visas for mere mortals. Look for skilled worker visas programmes where they are seeking particular specialties, look for industry-sector-based programmes, and look for programmes aimed at particular geographical areas. Just as one example, Canada has visa programmes for people prepared to work in its northern and Atlantic provinces. Getting a work visa will take a lot of research and effort, but once obtained it can be a route to permanent residence and even citizenship.
Then there is a whole category of entrepreneur, freelancer, and digital nomad visas. Most countries have these in some form or another, and while costs vary widely there are still some sweet spots. Leaving aside the citizenship-by-investment programmes which are only for the wealthy, there are often small business schemes which allow a proprietor of a business based in the country to live in the country and run the business. They inevitably require a certain level of cash to be held in the business to remain valid, but it’s often not an unattainable sum. The business itself can even often be a consulting operation, allowing the owner to do a fairly conventional job for which they are employed as a business rather than as a person.
If a business isn’t quite for you but you have a transportable skill, then a digital nomad visa may be for you. These are designed for people who earn money outside the country with a job they can do anywhere with an internet connection, the idea being that a country will attract a group of earners and taxpayers with minimal investment. They are usually fairly short term in the first instance as many people working this way prefer to hop from country to country, but there are usually schemes to extend them or convert them to residency.
These are by no means the only visas on offer, if you spend a while researching you’ll find a load of others for surprising reasons. But what this section should do is remind you that there are plenty of possibilities to be found, and if you’re prepared to do the research and make an effort it doesn’t have to cost the earth, either. Break out Duolingo, and start learning the language!
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.
Over the past year then, we’ve urged people to not wait for that end, but to
The first thing to say is that a bug-out bag is not there as part of a long-term and well-considered extraction master plan. It’s there for emergencies, when you need to drop everything and run. So part of it is the bag itself, but you should also consider it as a component in a greater bug-out plan. And don’t forget what you might have to leave behind, are there any other arrangements to be made? As an example, if you have a cat, arrange in advance for their welfare with a cis friend in the event you have to run. Or if you won’t be able to return, arrange with your friends what will happen to your possessions.
In my bug-out above I got one thing right, I had my car keys, phone, and payment card with me. These are the things you have on your person, and for instance you might want to add some cash, your passport, or a supply of your medication to them.
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