The Feministing Five: Rage M. Kidvai

From L to R – Alisha Williams, Director, Prisoner Justice Project; Rage M. Kidvai, Paul Rapaport Foundation/Equal Justice Works Law Fellow, Immigrant Justice Project; Elana Redfield Director, Survival and Self-Determination Project

This week we spoke to Rage M. Kidvai, the Paul Rapoport Foundation/Equal Justice Works Law Fellow, Immigrant Justice Project at the Sylvia Rivera Justice Project. With their bad-ass title, Rage does incredible work for transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex undocumented people as a part of such an incredible organization.

Suzanna Bobadilla: Thank you so much for speaking with us today! To get started, could you describe your work with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project? 

Rage M. Kidvai: I am a law graduate and am an Equal Justice Works Fellow who is funded by the Paul Rapoport Foundation. The Rapoport Foundation is a great supporter of LGBTQ legal activism. My work is specifically focused on immigration and deportation defense work. I represent transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex people who are undocumented. I am a generalist in some ways. I do immigration applications that make the most sense for folks, but my project specifically focuses on asylum for transgender people and withholding of removal.

One of the ways that our work is unique here at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project is that I focus on trans folks with criminal records. The reason why that is important is because trans women of color and those who are immigrants have been disproportionately policed. Whether it’s profiling or the fact that society criminalizes all sorts of things that shouldn’t be criminalized, like sex work or whatever the case may be, it means that a lot of clients have criminal records.

One of the problems that we were facing ourselves, even when I was an intern back in the day, was that we weren’t able to refer people out to other immigrant services or organizations because our clients’ asylum cases are often considered “less clean”. Asylum cases already take a very long time and then you have to file all sorts of paperwork when someone has a criminal record. Our clients were not priorities to the places where we referred them.

We are the only organization that has provided immigration trans legal services for a really long time, and so people are often much more comfortable coming to SRLP because of our relationships with community.  People bring their friends or their family members or their chosen family because there is this idea that if you are connected to our organization, and if you experience things like transphobia, trauma, violence both outside the US and within the US, both interpersonal and state violence, it’s probably easier to disclose that information to members within your community.

So when we ask people, “Do you want to be on a wait-list or do you want to go somewhere else,” a lot of people end up opting to wait, which is not a minor thing to have to wait for immigration status. I think that’s unique to SRLP. We are a membership organization, we do organizing and provide legal services so you can have  a say in the services that you receive in way that you wouldn’t somewhere else.

SB: There are reports that President Obama is planning to announce an immigration reform plan in the coming days. Based on his previous action (or inaction), I was curious to learn what your expectations were in regards to how it might affect trans folks. 

RMK: I think this is one of those moments when I think about immigration reform work as prison reform work, where I want to step back and think about how structurally these systems are inherently problematic. Obviously, it’s important to have legal changes and policy changes; at SRLP we do policy work along with direct service work and we recognize that legal work can change someone’s life pretty drastically.

At the same time, I don’t know how to evaluate a policy change without thinking about how borders are inherently violent or how immigration detention is inherently violent, and so I imagine that things for trans people of color who are undocumented and who are disproportionately poor won’t really change until we address some of the root causes of violence. Because these root causes are so connected and won’t be affected by policy change, I feel mostly anger. I think we need to be stepping back a lot more. From a personal perspective, I feel like we aren’t going to have any sort of liberation for trans folks under these current systems.

SB: How can our readers support the Sylvia Rivera Legal Project?

RMK: Our website has a lot of incredible resources that folks have worked hard to put together, so I think it’s important for people just to read. I believe it’s most useful for people to be reading things on their own, sharing that with their communities, and having conversations about detention, other forms of incarceration, racism, and poverty. I feel like that burden rests upon folks who are most affected by the things that we are talking about. I feel like trans people, people of color, and low income people are raising those issues, so I think it’s important to be an ally by looking at what’s happening in people’s lives.

For instance, there is a chart on the SRLP website about how trans people experience disproportionate poverty. Being an ally means thinking through that and realizing that these are not just numbers. If someone doesn’t have employment authorization and they are not able to get a job in a super capitalist economy, their survival is directly impacted. Educating yourself is really important.

Additionally, if people are interested in prison issues, they can get involved with prison pen pal work like Black and Pink and be present consistently Being incarcerated is really isolating and our members often ask for people to write in to be present in some way.

The other thing to really acknowledge is that many of your readers have experienced the violences and oppressions that we are talking about. I think from an organizational perspective and a movement perspective, receiving feedback for SRLP on how communities can feel more invested in our work and what support they need to be a part of movement work is really important. Hearing from community members on why or why not they feel like our work is useful is very helpful. The whole point is making sure that the voices of those who are impacted by our work guide it.

SB: How will you be commemorating next week’s Transgender Day of Remembrance? 

RMK: The organizations who are in the Miss Major Jay Toole building (SRLP, the Audre Lorde Project, Streetwise And Safe, Fierce) end up doing something in collaboration with each other. This sense of collaboration is one of my favorite things about working in this building. For example, someone might come in for legal services at SRLP, and then head to the Audre Lorde Project for community advocacy. Receiving legal services can feel very disempowering for some people as there is a huge power dynamic. One of the things that is so powerful about having all of these organizations in one space is that you could be a client for legal services and then participate in organizing the Trans Day of Remembrance. We all go to each other’s events, it’s really wonderful.

Housing Works is hosting an event on Monday, November 17 from 3:00 – 5:00 PM  and the Audre Lorde Project’s TransJustice is hosting their event on Wednesday, November 19th from 6:00 – 9:00 PM. 

SB: And for our traditional final question, you’re stranded on a desert island. You get to take with you one food, one drink, and one feminist. What do you choose? 

RMK: I love coconuts so definitely coconuts on trees would be amazing for both food and drink. In terms of a feminist, I would say Miss Major, Reina Gossett, and Phoolan Devi.