New trans legal clinic kicks off Jan. 16

Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates, a new legal clinic serving low-income transgender people, kicks off with a celebration at JRI Health headquarters Jan. 16. The following evening the clinic holds its first session at the offices of Cambridge Cares about AIDS (CCA), and the clinic will hold regular sessions the third Thursday of every month. The clinic is a collaboration between CCA's TransCEND (Transgender Care and Education Needs Diversity) program, which does HIV prevention and health education work in the transgender community, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), and AIDS Action Committee.

The kick-off event will feature an introduction to the clinic as well as a speech by Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and discussions about TransCEND's work and about MTPC's effort to pass a law adding gender identity and expression to the state's non-discrimination and hate crimes laws. Rep. Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville), one of the lead sponsors of the legislation, will emcee the event.

Lee Thornhill, prevention and education program manager for TransCEND, said the legal clinic is modeled after similar programs in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Last year TransCEND surveyed 100 of their clients, trans women at high risk for HIV infection, and found that many of them had legal troubles resulting from past criminal records.

"That's where we found that out of 100 trans women we spoke with, 55 percent had been in jail in the past three years, and the majority of them were survival-based crimes around drug use and sex work," said Thornhill. He said many of those clients have trouble finding housing or employment because those offenses appear on Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) checks. As a result Thornhill said TransCEND case managers spend about a third of their time sorting out their clients' legal issues.

"The legal clinic will help us get more support so we can focus on HIV work and get community help with the legal work," said Thornhill.

M. Barusch, a member of the MTPC steering committee and one of the lead organizers of Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates, said Denise McWilliams, AIDS Action's director of public policy and legal affairs, will oversee the clinic, and one other attorney and eight law students will also volunteer their time to work at the clinic. Barusch said the clinic has also received offers from a couple of other attorneys to volunteer, although they have not yet officially signed on.

The clinic will provide a variety of services to clients. In many cases Barusch said the volunteers will connect clients to pre-existing legal services designed to address their specific issues. For issues like name change procedures and other relatively straightforward topics volunteers will answer clients' questions and help explain how the law works. In a few instances the clinic will represent clients in court.

Barusch said the clinic will evolve over time as volunteers get a better sense of their clients' needs.

"We can be really flexible depending on what folks need. So we're hoping to get a handle on how we can be most useful as we go," said Barusch.

The kick-off for Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates will be held Jan. 16 at JRI Health, 25 West St., Boston, from 6-8 p.m. The first session of the clinic will be held Jan. 17 at Cambridge Cares about AIDS, 17 Sellers St., Cambridge, from 6-8 p.m. For more information call 617.450.1353 or e-mail [email protected].