Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project

The Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) is a grassroot non-profit founded with the intent to end civil rights violations against incarcerated Black TGI folks in the California Bay Area and at the national level.

Our founding as a legal advocacy and support organization began in 2004 with the help of Alex Lee, a Soros JusticeFellow from the Open Society Institute. Since our founding, leadership and staff positions have been and continue to be composed of a majority of Black transgender people.

In 2005, TGIJP merged with the organization Transgender in Prison Committee (TIP), an offshoot of HIV-in-Prison Committee, to directly support and advocate for TGI people beyond the prison system. The main San Francisco programs for TGIJP clients include: the Re-Entry Program, the Legal Program, and the Housing and Supportive Services Program.

TGIJP's mission is to challenge and end the human rights abuses committed against Black and Black/Brown Trans people inside of California prisons, jails, detention centers and beyond. 

TGIJP builds voice, power and leadership among transgender, gender variant and intersex people – inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers – creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom which centers Black TGI people.

Values:

1. Fighting for the freedom and liberation of Black TGI lives with an abolitionist liberation framework. 

1. Centering lived experience of Black and Black/Brown Trans women impacted by criminal injustice institutions and systemic oppression.

1. Harm reduction framework for service plans.*

1. Trauma informed practice for engagement and collaboration.*

1. Dismantling the ladder of oppression by breaking the bottom rung.* 

1. Intersectional analysis of positionality in access to power and voice. 

1. Horizontal power structure in leadership and governance.

1. Transformative Justice framework for working on conflict.

*defined by directors and informed by TGIJP constituents