About the Author: True Self Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on June 6, 2017, with the purpose of promoting a more just and inclusive society for communities with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities in Puerto Rico. The foundation offers legal services for name changes to facilitate the legal transition process for transgender and non-binary individuals. It also provides partial scholarships for gender affirmation surgeries to support medical transition processes. Additionally, it offers academic and entrepreneurship scholarships for members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Puerto Rico, and provides financial support to eligible individuals and projects within the community.
True Self Foundation was founded in 2017 with the goal of diversifying the needs served within the LGBT+ community. Our foundation emerged in a context where most philanthropic support for the community was directed toward organizations serving people living with HIV. With this in mind, we set out to create an organization that could address other issues and challenges faced by LGBT+ communities through holistic wellness and social mobility, which are the central pillars of our mission.
We also place special emphasis on supporting transgender and non-binary individuals because, in the context of Puerto Rico, there is significantly less tolerance for gender issues compared to those having to do with sexuality. The main difference between the two is that gender identity is linked to what we are designated at birth—whether male or female, masculine or feminine—while sexuality has to do with who we desire sexually, romantically, or intellectually; and all the ways in which we can feel attracted to someone.
In addition to serving as the executive director of True Self Foundation, I am a clinical psychologist specializing in LGBT+ affirmation. As part of my work, I facilitate and hold emotional support spaces for both LGBT+ individuals and their family members. Recently, I led a support group for parents of transgender individuals, where I witnessed the many concerns they have regarding the well-being of their children.
These concerns range from access to essential medical treatment for transgender individuals to having to deal with street violence. These fears are neither incidental nor new; rather, they are the same fears that persistently pervade our entire community and families (biological and chosen) today. The fears and anxieties impacting us as a community stem from a new wave of legislation that seeks to make it impossible for LGBT+ individuals to live a dignified life.
These laws do not expand rights or protections, as all legislation should; instead, they undermine our communities by making our existence invisible or by obstructing access to goods necessary to live.
As a result of these efforts to legislate and advance laws that jeopardize the well-being of LGBT+ communities, our foundation has identified the need to focus more on policy advocacy work. The laws that continue to be introduced and passed in government, rather than expanding rights, seek to take rights away from queer people, putting our lives and well-being in danger. Some of these legislations include PS 350, PC 165, and the recently passed PS1, which seek to ban hormone treatment, inclusive bathrooms, and allow that queer people be denied basic health services, respectively. For instance, PS1 is a direct threat to people’s lives because it legalizes public employees to refuse service to someone based on their religious beliefs. We know that even if the institution promises to seek an alternative, in a collapsed health system like the one we have in Puerto Rico, those alternatives will not be available.
In addition to threatening the lives of queer people, this type of legislation also represents a setback to some of the progress made, such as protection against employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, the ban on conversion therapy, and the requirement for continuing education on LGBT+ issues every three years.
Given this context, we have taken it upon ourselves to explain the rights that people still have. We’ve had to do this more often because the public is anxious and afraid due to the uncertainty surrounding all these sudden changes. An essential focus for our community right now is defending the rights we have already secured. Our struggle, just like the struggles of women, and black and disabled individuals, is the struggle for freedom. Everyone is fighting to live as their authentic selves and to ensure that they are not denied a dignified life based on their identity.
It is also extremely important for our community to understand that protecting LGBT+ communities means protecting our entire society and the ecosystem of communities and support networks that also suffer indirectly from the consequences of these measures that threaten the lives of queer people.
When the lives of queer people are put at risk, the lives of their families, friends, communities, and colleagues are also affected because queer people are an integral part of the social fabric of our island.
They are coming after us now, what’s to stop them from coming after you in the future? How much longer will we allow the people we elect to legislate according to their personal beliefs or ways of living life?
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The Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico supported True Self Foundation because we believe that the fight for gender equity must unconditionally include the defense of LGBTQ+ communities, who face some of the greatest barriers and exclusions in Puerto Rico, yet receive minimal philanthropic support. In light of a wave of legislation that threatens their right to a dignified life, we support their work in education, accompaniment, and advocacy to ensure that all people, regardless of their identity, can live with dignity, freedom, and security.