About TGI Justice Project (TGIJP)
This year, PLUS has partnered with the San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) to donate a portion of proceeds from each Rainbow Sherbet tin sold to help further their mission. Learn more about the partnership or the PLUS limited edition Pride gummies here.
Each Pride season, we seek to engage in meaningful partnerships with our grantees that go beyond the monetary donation. PLUS seeks to understand our partner organizations and utilize our platforms to further amplify their message and their work. We spent time talking with a few of the members of the TGIJP organization to learn more about the ways in which they are helping the TGI community, and wanted to share in depth the work they do for the LGBTQ+ community and beyond.
Meet the Grantee
TGIJP is a group of transgender, gender varient and intersex people - inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers - creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom. For over 16 years, TGIJP has been working to end human rights abuses against transgender, gender-variant and intersex people in California prisons and beyond, particularly ensuring the safety and empowerment of Black trans women and folks. TGIJP’s staff has been and continues to be composed of a majority of transgender people of color, and its leadership positions have always been held by formerly incarcerated Black transgender women.
The History of TGIJP
TGIJP was founded in 2004 with the help of Alex Lee, a Soros Justice Fellow from the Open Society Institute, to provide legal services for transgender, gender-variant, and intersex people, primarily those in California prisons, jails and detention centers. In 2005, Lee, an attorney and member of TGIJP’s founding advisory board and the organization’s first Director, brought on Miss Major Griffin-Gracy to help run the organization, which had just merged with the Transgender in Prison (TIP) Committee, an offshoot of the HIV-in-Prison Committee. TIP became the community organizing program of TGIJP, and Miss Major was hired to oversee it. Miss Major became the organization’s first Executive Director in 2010. Since then, TGIJP has grown into a thriving direct service and global advocacy leader in the service of TGI liberation.
From 2010 to 2014, TGIJP shifted from legal service work to peer legal advocacy programs. These formative years included a time where the staff was entirely trans people of color, three out of four of whom were formerly incarcerated trans women of color. In 2015, TGIJP again hired a staff attorney, establishing an effective combination of rigorous legal service work and peer advocacy power building inside prisons, jails, and detention centers and outside in the community.
In Late 2015, Miss Major retired and passed the torch to Janetta Johnson, TGIJP’s current Executive Director, under whose leadership TGIJP implemented the social economic justice fellowship and the re-entry (paid) program where people are supported coming out of cages, and the start of Black Girlz Rulez (BGR), a Black trans, GNC, non binary national convening.
Spotlight on TGIJP’s Legal Work
Whether through advocacy, legal and re-entry services, life saving direct services or other urgent needs like temporary housing/shelter, employment, and transportation, TGIJP has gone above and beyond to provide for members of the TGI community and keep them safe from police, systems of incarceration, violence and discrimination. TGIJP maintains two attorneys to support their extensive activities:
Training: Support to the TGIJP Leadership Academy by training incarcerated and formerly incarcerated TGI people throughout the state of California in basic legislative advocacy skills.
Legal Aid: Legal mail and emergency line which responds to an average of 100 legal letters a month providing legal assistance, and 25 emergency calls a month to respond to emergent legal needs or immediate safety concerns
Re-entry Support: Assistance obtaining parole by sending support letters to institutions and offering housing, and employment through placement in their re-entry program. Representation for Clemency Applications and Clemency support for release; Assistance with name and gender marker updates
Prison Rape Elimination: Assistance filing complaints under the Prison Rape Elimination Act and through prison administrative appeals processes; submission of complaints to U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General for retaliation from filing complaints under the Prison Rape Elimination Act and US and State Constitutions.
Advocacy: Advocacy for transfer to safer prison or housing within a prison pursuant to SB 132. Litigation of incidents of transphobia, abuse, torture, discrimination, against institutional employees and institutions.
Defense Support: Participatory defense support for criminal charges linked to acts of self defense and survival.
Legislation: Cosponsorship of legislation to give tools to TGI people inside CA prisons.
Policy: Leadership on numerous policy and program initiatives, such as Decarceration Communications Campaign and Strategy to build support for decarceration legislation; supporting Defund SFPD and PIC by forwarding our abolitionist demands; No New Jails SF coalition membership; collaboration with Beyond BInary Legal and CTPA.
Additional programs and resources
Beyond the legal and advocacy work, TGIJP provides resources for their members on the inside and those coming home. Stiletto, a newsletter sent to 1500 incarcerated TGI people, features submissions by TGI folks from inside and outside, provides legal advice and advocacy tools, and includes political education pieces. It’s a simple yet powerful medium for providing access to media and education while breaking down walls and offering a sense of community for its recipients. TGIJP also facilitates a pen pal program to break down physical barriers and provide a sense of community through communication for members on the inside.
For folks coming home, TGIJP runs the Melanie Eleneke Grassroots Re-Entry Program, which provides resources, training and community for members to set people up to be in the best position coming home. They hire members who come out of the system to help others who follow behind them. TGIJP also does important coalition-building work as part of the Black Girls Rulez program, a community convening led by Black trans women to help prioritize resources for the most impacted groups in the South and Midwest.
PLUS is incredibly humbled to be partnering with the incredible team at TGIJP and supporting the work that they do. To learn more about TGIJP or donate, please visit www.tgijp.org.
