Women At The Helm 2011

November 9, 2011 Kat Long

Rachel Tiven: Executive Director, Immigration Equality “Every day, Immigration Equality hears from couples and individuals who, because of our work, literally have a new lease on life,” Rachel Tiven proudly reports. As the Executive Director of Immigration Equality and Immigration Equality Action Fund, the national organization fighting for equality under U.S. immigration law for LGBT and HIV-positive individuals, Tiven (pictured with New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler) has helped to win asylum for more than 100 LGBT people who escaped persecution and violence in their homelands. Immigration Equality was founded with three goals: end the HIV travel and immigration ban, provide LGBT people with full access to asylum in the United States, and allow lesbian and gay Americans to sponsor their partners for citizenship. “In a little more than a decade, we have already accomplished our first two goals,” Tiven says. “Today, Immigration Equality is working to win its final victory, too. That work is based on a simple but profound belief: American citizens should not be told whom they can, and cannot, share their lives and their homes with, and no one should be forced to choose between the person they love and the country they call home.” Prior to her work with the group, Tiven was a reporter and television producer for Bloomberg Business News and an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York.

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Jen Hogg: Co-founder, Service Women’s Action Network Shortly before co-founding Service Women’s Actions Network (SWAN), Jen Hogg was a Sergeant, 63Y track mechanic and HEMTT tow truck operator in the New York Army National Guard. “Although I knew about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ when I enlisted, there was no way to prepare for what it felt like when I was activated on 9/11. DADT wasn’t a sacrifice I shared with my fellow service members; it was an incredibly isolating slap in the face,” she admits. Hogg and her SWAN co-founder, former Marine Captain Anu Bhagwati, felt an urgent need to create an organization that could address military policy and federal legislation. “We make the connections that often get overlooked. DADT had a disproportionate impact on women, specifically women of color. Both men and women [in the military] have reported their rapist used DADT to blackmail them into silence. Because SWAN also focuses on rape, sexual assault and harassment in the military, we are in a unique position to monitor the post-DADT environment.” Hogg’s vision has led to overwhelming success in engaging senators and representatives on these issues, as well as in helping individual veterans and service members through a peer support helpline. “Some of the urgent needs of veterans and service members are ignored when they are seen as ‘women’s issues’ and not military issues, or vice versa,” Hogg says. “It’s rewarding to know I am part of changing that.”