20 June, Statement delivered by GATE at the 59th Human Rights Council session
Alexus D’Marco, a trans woman from The Bahamas, delivered a statement on behalf of GATE in collaboration with trans and gender diverse activists from the Global South and East, welcoming the IE SOGI report and stressing the need to address the urgent issue of forced displacement affecting LGBTIQ communities.
She highligthed that many trans and gender diverse people are first displaced by their own families and that the rejection is followed by systemic exclusion, homelessness, lack of access to basic health and other life-saving services.
She also urged the Council to pay special attention to the intersection of displacement and climate change, as trans communities in the Caribbean and Pacific face a double jeopardy of environmental precarity, such as natural disasters, rising sea levels and food security, and State inaction or hostility that further marginalizes them.
Listen to the entire speech below.