Trans activist wins 2008 Felipa de Souza Award - IGLHRC
The ILGA Trans Secretariat wants to congratulate at Chilean trans activist Andrés Ignacio Rivera Duarte, winner of 2008 Felipa de Souza Award which recognizes the courage and effectiveness of groups or leaders dedicated to improving the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) and other individuals stigmatized and abused because of their sexuality or HIV status.
Nominations for the Felipa Award are solicited each year from activists around the world. Nominees go through a rigorous review by the staff, board and the International Advisory Committee of IGLHRC. The award embodies the spirit of Felipa de Souza, who endured persecution and brutality after proudly declaring her intimacy with a woman during a 16th Century inquisition trial in Brazil.
“I receive this award with humility and honor,” said Andrés Rivera. “On behalf of murdered trans people, of those who fight to build a more egalitarian and fair world, and of those trans people who day-by-day live with the pain of not being considered human beings.”
In 2005, Andrés Ignacio Rivera Duarte, a trans man, founded Organización de Transexuales por la Dignidad de la Diversidad, the first NGO in Chile dedicated to fighting for trans people’s rights, which he currently heads. He has worked with government and the local health system to facilitate the evaluation, treatment and surgery of trans people, and organized the first Rancagua debate on the Civil Union Pact.
But his work is not just with high-level officials; he also provides direct support to sex workers—visiting them nightly to distribute coffee, food and information about HIV/AIDS. Himself the victim of employment discrimination, he fought a landmark lawsuit, bringing issues of gender identity into the public view.
Andrés shares the award with the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO). “We are thrilled that the international community has come to acknowledge the LGBT rights struggle in Iran,” said Arsham Parsi, IRQO’s executive director. “We can no longer claim that no one cares about our plight. This is not an award just for IRQO. We accept this award on behalf of all Iranian queers who have been long fighting for their basic human rights. The stipend will allow IRQO to continue its campaign for human rights and to challenge homophobia in Iran.”
Each award winner will receive a $5,000 stipend. The awards will be presented at a special ceremony in New York on April 28, 2008.
Previous Felipa Award winners include: the Blue Diamond Society (BDS) of Nepal; Rauda Morcos, founder of ASWAT (Voices) the first group for Palestinian lesbians; Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), the first organization to push for the human rights of LGBT people in Zimbabwean society and to provide counseling services and HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns; Simon Tseko Nikoli, the famed LGBT/HIV activist from South Africa; Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, whose leader Brian Williamson was murdered in 2004; Lohana Berkins, a globally recognized transgender activist from Argentina; and Maher Sabry, the Egyptian activist who notified IGLHRC of the arrests of the Cairo 52, a group of 52 men who were arrested by the Egyptian police at a Cairo gay nightclub in 2001.
For more information regarding IGLHRC’s Felipa de Souza Award and its A Celebration of Courage events, visit: www.iglhrc.org
