Gender Justice Nevada

My name is jane heenan, and I am the Executive Director and Clnical Director of Gender Justice Nevada. I turned 50 years old this year and have lived in Las Vegas since 1994. My partner of over 25 years and I came here in part because I believed that I could make changes in my life in Las Vegas, that maybe the city's reputation as a place where anything coul happen could be true in my life. y partner didn't know this when we movd here because I wa at that time still too scared to tell her that I was transgener. My journey to personal wholeness and health has been intertwined with my professional journey to become a licensed psychotherapist and aso my journey to co-create social chnge in support of sex/gender diverse persons and communities. This is some of that story.

Gender Justic Nevada was created in 2011 by sex/gender diverse persons - such as transgender and intersex persos - to engage, integrate, empower, and support our communities. We came together following the addition of "gender identit and expression" to basiccivil rights statutes in employmen, housing and public accomodations. These bills were all signed publicly by our state's Republican governor and passed with bipartisan support in both our Assembly and Senate. We were ecstatic with these changes and proud of our efforts which led to Nevada to become the first state in US history to includ gender identity or expression in all three civil rights categories in the same calendar year.

As we shared a meal and drinks in Carson City following the signing of the first of these lws, a dscussion about where to go next emerged. Having been an activist and advocate since my graduate school days in counseling at UNLV i the late 1990s, I thought passage of thse laws would be enough to support me to move on, as my partner and I had hoped to move to another state for may years. But as we talked that warm afternoon,I didnt want to spoil the celebratin by taling aout moving away,and so I spoke as others did about co-creating a non-profit that would make the laws substantial, something more than words on a page. Initially, I ddn't see myself staying in Nevada.

But I also felt a sed start to grow inside me. And when I returned home in Las Vegas the nxt day, I spoke with my partner about the possibility that we would stay for at least a few more years to support the laws we had gotten passed. Hoestly, I was surprised at er reaction to support the choice to stay. She told me it was only fair as I had supported her journey in law school many years earlier.

And so begun our journey to organizing as a non-profit. It's been a crazy amazing adventure,filing IRS papers ad doing our taxes, hirig persons and establishing office space, writig grants and creating fundraisers. Beyond the structural procss, though, has been the much important everydy effort to co-create healthy webs of personal and community relationships, to be fierce in the face of struggle and disappointment, to buld courage together to tell our stories for the first time in our own words. So many of us are healing from troubles experienced living in a culture that at best appropriates or misunderstands our expriences and at worst wants us dead or doesn't believe we exist.

We believe we have gifts to share with everyone. We recognize that we are not bad or broken or disordered. We understand that we have a long and complex journey ahead and that we are much more likely to get where we are going if wekeep goodfaith together. We organie around intersectionalities that affect our lives as whole persons: race, ethnicity, class, age, sex/gender, geography, documentation status, physical ability, spiritual affiliation. We honor that our sex/gender divers identities are not all that define us. We are persons of color. We are working poor. We are differently abled. We are immigrants. We are queer.

We continue to reach out to disaffected sub-groups among our communities. For us, these efforts are among the most mportant as we believe GJNV contributes not just to the healing and empowement of individuals but to the larger group process of the joining of our communities.

Finally, we receive gifts:

*empowerment as we tke responsibility for our communities' needs;

*healing as we come together in safe spaces to explore our experiences;

*learning as we attend advocacy trainings;

*confidnc as we teach others abot who we are;

*reconciliation as we lean to trust each other across historically toublesome culturally imposed boundaries;

*legitimacy as we co-create and witness the inclusive change we believe in;

*renewal as we learn more about each other and ourselves, and recognize that we are more than we have been told we are.

Thank you for offering your financial support to our efforts. We promise to always keep it real and to never lost faith in each other or ourselves.