GATE (organization)

Founded in 2009 by Justus Eisfeld and Mauro Cabral Grinspan, GATE is registered in the United States of America as a non-profit organization, with all staff working remotely. The organization has two official languages: English and Spanish.[3]

Former co-directors included Justus Eisfeld, a co-founder of Transgender Europe and a contributor to the Activist's Guide for the Yogyakarta Principles in Action and Masen Davis, also formerly Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center.[4]

GATE envisions a world free from human rights violations based on gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics. Its strategy is to transform the landscape of global advocacy, knowledge creation and resource distribution through critical inclusion of trans, gender diverse and intersex movements at all levels of political, legal and socio-economic processes.[3]

GATE's values include:

• Supporting community-based leadership
• Promoting autonomy and self-determination
• Framing our work through depathologization and decolonization
• Working collaboratively and advocating collectively for human rights
• Solidarity with our communities internationally
• Creating transformative knowledge
• Fighting for justice on issues of race, geopolitics, climate, socio-economics, and sexual and reproductive reparations.[3]

GATE works in strategic partnership with UN bodies and mechanisms, international human rights organizations, global funders and trans and intersex regional and national networks to advocate for and create opportunities to include of our communities in global decision-making processes. Its organizational strategy is shaped by its board in consultation with trans, gender diverse and intersex partners, allies from different human rights movements and key experts in its specific fields of work.

• GATE partners with trans, gender diverse and intersex activists, organizations and networks; with allies in other movements (LGB, feminist, human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, etc); with donors; with official agencies and academic institutions.
• GATE advocates at the international level, pushing for the full inclusion of trans, gender diverse and intersex issues in decision-making processes and for increased resources to fuel their work.
• GATE researches and shares critical knowledge on depathologization, HIV, funding and human rights, combining expert approaches with concrete strategies to make them accessible to all.
• GATE supports and mentors trans, gender diverse and intersex activists, facilitating their access to technical and political processes at the international level.
• GATE engages in international conversations, initiatives and advocacy efforts to promote and defend human rights.
• GATE trains and mentors trans and intersex activists to engage in global decision-making mechanisms, processes and bodies, and in organizational management.
• GATE participates in international working groups, meetings and conferences, inviting trans, gender diverse and intersex activists from around the world to attend and providing training to ensure they can participate fully.[3]

GATE's areas of work include depathologization, UN activism, HIV, movement building and socio-economic justice.[5]

Some of GATE's major projects include:

• successfully advocating to the WHO to depathologize transgender identities in the ICD-11 in collaboration with transgender activists globally;[6]
• organising UN Trans Advocacy Week in collaboration with APTN, TGEU, RFSL and ILGA World;[7]
• signing the Yogyakarta Principle plus 10 to apply international human rights law to sexual orientation and gender identity, extending the Principles to formally include sex characteristics and gender expression;[8]
• publishing reports on trans and intersex access to funding with the American Jewish World Service and Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice;[9]
• creating the first International Working Group on Trans Men and HIV, a global project focused on strengthening and generating knowledge to further the engagement of trans men and trans masculine people in the international HIV response;[10]
• increasing the capacity of transgender communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia to meaningfully engage with Global Fund processes on issues relating to HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.[11]

In July 2015, Cabral was a co-recipient of the inaugural Bob Hepple Equality Award, alongside Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters.[12] The award is named for Bob Hepple, the former lawyer of Nelson Mandela.[13] The Oxford Human Rights Hub comments, "Cabral was crucial in the process leading to the enactment of Argentina’s Gender Identity Law in 2012, a law which has been extensively cited in court decisions on gender identity cases, including the Indian Supreme Court, and which has inspired legislation reform in countries including Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden."[12]

• List of transgender-rights organizations
• List of LGBT rights organizations
• Intersex civil society organizations
• Intersex human rights
• Yogyakarta Principles

• GATE Official Site