Rainbow Refugee Society

Published purpose

This 12-month project will develop community-informed initiatives to better understand and document the post-migration experiences of LGBTQI newcomers, including trans and gender-diverse newcomers in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, and will share resources to help LGBTQI newcomers in British Columbia (BC) to pursue and claim their rights. To achieve this, Rainbow Refugee Society will work with their partners across Canada. They will consult with service providers, legal professionals, and LGBTQI newcomers to identify the individual and systemic barriers to social determinants of health that they encounter. These consultations will inform the development of Journey Maps outlining the localized conditions and a report card measuring the conditions and factors impacting the social determinants of health of LGBTQI newcomers. The report card will also identify some promising practices and other opportunities for system improvement. In BC, consultations will focus on the challenges faced by trans and gender-diverse newcomers in attempting to claim their legal right to name and/or gender recognition. Through the development and sharing of a tool for systems navigation, Rainbow Refugee Society will equip trans and gender-diverse newcomers in BC with information to support them in accessing their legal right to gender identity and recognition of name and gender designation. Peer system navigators will be trained to assist them, and a workshop to connect system users to these resources will be organized. Additional knowledge sharing and mobilization events such as meetings with service providers, government, and other community partners and stakeholders will address discrepancies in services, supports, and experiences for LGBTQI newcomers. The resources developed through this project will be shared and used as tools for advocacy after the project ends.