FARAH TANIS
“We are magnificent, loving, powerful beings,” says Farah Tanis. “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, two spirit, intersex, gender non-conforming, questioning, straight, people of African descent… each and all of us.” These are the empowering words of a Haitian immigrant and human rights activist who chairs the U.S. Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and serves as executive director of Black Women’s Blueprint, which she co-founded. Tanis works nationally and at the grassroots level to address sexual violence against women, girls and gender-fluid people in communities of African descent. The recipient of numerous awards, Tanis is a U.S. Human Rights Institute Fellow and a member of the Task Force on the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). What’s most rewarding about her work, she says, is that it’s “about those of us who, by the grace of the universe and beat of our boots, fought to create spaces where we could love, live and lust in full bloom. It is our right to be with, love and do—safely, and with consent and dignity—what we mutually choose in our loving relationships, without the threat of discrimination, violence or torture. That in itself is a revolutionary act.” –SLO
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