the TRANSitions program
Black and Pink’s newly formed TRANSitions program, in conjunction with our Re-Entry Assistance Program (REAP), is a conduit for safe housing specifically for formerly incarcerated transgender women who are particularly vulnerable.
TRANSitions provides support, resources, and safe housing for transgender women.
One in five transgender people in the United States has been discriminated against when seeking a home. More than one in ten have been evicted from their homes, because of their gender identity.
The R.E.A.P program
The R.E.A.P Program focuses on addressing the difficult issues that queer and transgender formerly incarcerated people face when they are reentering society. Lack of quality and safe residency, medical care, employment and self-development are continuing to lead people back into a system that did not prepare them to be released and be successful in the first place. Bridging that gap, is where Black and Pink’s R.E.A.P program comes in.
the marsha P. johnson youth leadership
LGBTQIA2S+ equality has gained momentum, but it remains unevenly distributed and incomplete. Even where it exists, legal equality has not yet translated into lived equality for all, especially for lower income people and people of color. The Working Group is committed to criminal justice policy reform and advocacy for all criminalized LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV (PLWH).
APPLICATIONS OPEN SOON
LGBTQIA2S+ youth age 14 – 19 are eligible to apply to the Institute, with some age exceptions. The Institute is centered around four main tenets.
guiding principLES
The working group program
LGBTQIA2S+ equality has gained momentum, but it remains unevenly distributed and incomplete. Even where it exists, legal equality has not yet translated into lived equality for all, especially for lower income people and people of color. The Working Group is committed to criminal justice policy reform and advocacy for all criminalized LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV (PLWH).
about the working group
The Working Group, a national advocacy coalition coordinated by two LGBTQIA2S+ formerly incarcerated people, has an urgent focus on criminal justice reform. LGBTQIA2S+ people and PLWH are overrepresented in all aspects of the criminal justice system, from policing, to adjudication, to incarceration, to release. The high rates of LGBTQIA2S+ people and PLWH in criminal and juvenile justice systems are a byproduct of legacies of criminalization, and continuing discrimination in employment, education, social services, health care, and responses to violence.
The Working Group, comprised of nearly 50 organizations, pushes for bold action to reduce the LGBTQIA2S+ and PLWH disparities in the criminal justice system and the consequences of criminalization they face.
To reach the Working Group’s shared goal of criminal justice reform through decarceration, we support action to address the following categories and their impact on LGBTQIA2S+ people and PLWH:
- Policing
- Corrections
- Immigration
- Reentry
- Juvenile Justice
- Sex Work
- HIV Criminalization
- Formerly Incarcerated People
- Sex Offense Policy
These goals are outlined in our report, A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People Living with HIV.
guiding principLES
The Working Group is dedicated to balancing the unequal range of unequal laws and policies that dehumanize, victimize, and criminalize LGBTQIA2S+ people and PLWH. As a coalition, the Working Group has created and agreed on a set of guiding principles to determine our policy positions and provide a framework to realize our overall efforts to reform criminal justice for LGBTQIA2S+ people and PLWH.