Be One of Us – Donate
Trans Rescue is a non-profit foundation that helps transgender people worldwide escape from places where it is dangerous to be a transgender person.
We have volunteers in many places across the world, but we are registered in the Netherlands as Stichting Trans Rescue Foundation, registration number 84793252.
We are the spiritual successor of TransEmigrate.
TransEmigrate, started by Misty Hill in 2020, operated as a loosely organized collection of volunteers with an informal ‘board’. During it’s two years of operation, it, along with partner organization TransAsylias, got about 9 people out of danger.
We have incorporated as Trans Rescue to regularize our fundraising and work.We want to convert the experiment of TransEmigrate to an industrial process, helping many people out of danger.
We help trans people remove themselves from dangerous situations, in particular from dangerous countries.
- We do so in a way that is legal and legitimate, and as physically and emotionally safe for our clients as we can make it.
- We communicate clearly with our clients what our timetable is for moving them.
- We publish our books.
We bring people to safe places by conventional carriers – In the end, people fly or ride a train to safety. We are not people smugglers and don’t forge passports or put people in the back of trucks.
We operate under the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Refugee Convention establishes a set of core principles governing member’s treatment of refugees.
- Nondiscrimination – States may not discriminate against a person based on their status as a refugee
- Nonpenalization – States should not penalize refugees who entered a country illegally if they did so in order to obtain refuge from persecution
- Nonrefoulement – States may not return refugees to the country they have fled from.
We use the terms of this international agreement, along with others, to get trans people to a safe country where they can claim asylum, or get trans people a long term residence status in a safe country where they can then obtain a truly permanent status.
We never break the laws of the countries we bring people into. We bring people out of places whose laws violate human rights. F___ them.
We believe that every trans person’s life is valuable.
We believe that we have a responsibility, as humans, to help others.
Many of us are trans ourselves. Many of us are refugees ourselves. Some of us are from religious traditions with a history of their own oppression.
Jennifer Willow List
Member, Managing Board, Treasurer
Jenny List is an editor at Hackaday.com and a long time activist, both for union rights and the rights of trans people.
Rebecca Barton
Member, Managing Board, Secretary
Rebecca has experience working with displaced people and spent time volunteering in the infamous Calais Jungle refugee camp with the project “Caravans for Calais”.
She trained in social work and quietly campaigns for LGBT rights in faith based organisations across the UK.
Anne Ogborn
Member, Management Board, Chair
Anne Ogborn is a long time activist for transgender rights. She started her activism in the mid 1980s
Objective
Stichting Trans Rescue Foundation is an independent organization that helps transgender people flee from places where it is dangerous to be transgender.