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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Francine Ramsey: Co-founder and Executive Director, Zuna Institute “I didn’t get involved in nonprofit work on purpose. It was about being of service, and helping women to overcome challenges in their lives,” says Francine Ramsey, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Zuna Institute, the oldest and only national organization serving and supporting black lesbians. The first African-American woman to earn Journeyman status in the Rigging trade for the U.S. Navy, Ramsey has enjoyed a two-decade career in the nonprofit field with Girl Scouts USA and on the boards of civil rights and LGBT groups, including the Black Lesbian Elder Speak Project, Lambda Community Fund in Sacramento and Oakland Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club. Now at the helm of the Zuna Institute, Ramsey recently published its groundbreaking study, Black Lesbians Matter—a survey of 1,600 black lesbians across the country revealing the community’s key concerns and priorities. “I want to have the black lesbian community seen as an intricate part of the LGBTQ movement, and balance the scale of inequities, so the resources are available to organizations that serve black lesbians,” Ramsey says. “I did a presentation at a northern California university and there was a small group of black lesbians there. It brought me to tears when one of the students said, ‘this was the first time I ever heard anyone speak positively about who I am.’ This is why I do this work!”