A Message from our Executive Director
Dear friends,
2018 has been a challenging year for many of us, but particularly for trans, gender diverse and intersex communities. GATE’s 2018 Annual Report highlights our responses to challenges as they arose. and demonstrates the power of collective action.
This year, we put our greatest effort into combining our three key strategies: advocacy, knowledge and political mobilization. Each activity in 2018 utilized these three strategies, which were developed collectively with activists from across the world. We collaborated with more activists than ever, combining diverse geographic regions, languages and areas of expertise. Once again, we reaffirmed that we are stronger when we are when working together.
Throughout 2018, GATE spoke out on multiple issues, including calling for the inclusion of trans and gender diverse people in the global HIV response, an end to torture of intersex persons in healthcare settings, and the collection of strategic information and data for the implementation of evidence-based inclusive policies. GATE built the capacity of activists to engage with global decision-making bodies and enabled access to these spaces, including the 39th UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the World AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, and the WPATH Symposium in Buenos Aires.
One of GATE’s biggest successes from 2018 was the WHO revision of the ICD-11, which depathologized trans identities. This success is commensurate with the depathologization of homosexuality in the 1980s, and we look forward to significant changes in the lives of trans and gender diverse people in the years to come based on this reclassification.
All of the issues we have worked on highlight clearly that our lives do matter, and that effective change cannot happen without our engagement, emphasizing the adage “nothing about us, without us”.
In reading GATE 2018 Annual Report, you will discover that we are not only responding to past and present challenges, but also strategizing for the future.
Support us, collaborate with us, and walk with us into a better future.
With warmest regards,
Mauro Cabral Grinspan