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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Brandie Balken: Executive Director, Equality Utah As the head of Equality Utah—the state’s largest political advocacy organization for LGBT people and their families—Brandie Balken believes that the best reward is witnessing change, one person at a time. “When someone moves from opposition to understanding and sees me, my family and members of the LGBTQ community as human beings, not as ‘threats,’ I know that I am doing my job,” Balken says—no small feat in a state known for its conservative population and influence of the Mormon church. She credits her mother’s “outspoken advocacy for marginalized populations and the environment” with inspiring her to follow the same path. “I did an immense amount of volunteer work in my twenties and thirties while I was working at a local business. When the opportunity opened up to serve my community as my profession, I was thrilled to have my day job and ‘night’ job combined.” Balken began working on social, economic and environmental justice issues after graduating college with organizations like Seeds of Peace, Food Not Bombs and the Western Shoshone Defense Project. Her career in nonprofit administration and advisement led Balken to serve on the Utah Pride Center’s Board of Directors and the Salt Lake Art Center’s Board of Trustees. She was also the Board Chair of sWerve, a non-profit organizing resource for queer, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender womenfocused social and civic activity in Utah.