For the Transgender Law Center, What is Authenticity?
By Administrator
For current Human Rights beneficiary Transgender Law Center (TLC), authenticity is a core value.
Authentic expression is a central part of their mission and vision and is a key word in many of their public statements and outreach efforts. But what, essentially, does it mean to them, to the work they do?
For Transgender Law Center, it means ensuring every client they serve has the ability – legally, emotionally, and in practice – to not only define themselves, but to make their own decisions, to have the self-efficacy everyone deserves.
It means empowering transgender adults and youth to tell their own stories.
It also means making sure every individual has the proper legal documents to match the gender with which he or she identifies. TLC works to make this possible through providing resources so all Californians know their rights in updating identification, promoting legislation to streamline name and documentation change procedures, and through client advocacy on a case-by-case basis.
Authenticity also means empowering transgender leaders to act for themselves on issues that are important to them. Whether this means helping to create a national Immigration activist network or a piloting a community-led HIV-survey, TLC helps to create the spaces for transgender leaders to flourish.
Providing the necessary knowledge to be your desired self is also key in true authenticity. TLC’s first work providing legal clinics and pamphlets on legal issues affecting the transgender community, and it continues that work to this day – on a variety of issues.
While the work of TLC continues to expand after nearly 15 years of service, it all still comes down to that one core value of authenticity. Ensuring that someday every member of the transgender community will be able to live as their true self, with the full knowledge and power that comes with that representation will always be their priority.
TLC is an awardee of our Humanist Grants program. We have recently expanded this program to award larger, longer term grants so that organizations like TLC have the opportunity to make transformational change. But we need your support for our Annual Appeal to make this happen. Please consider chipping in a few dollars today.
