The 70th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was a milestone for LBTQI+ women worldwide, and for Rainbow Railroad. In a first for us, we partnered to host three important events. Firstly, with the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration (ORAM), then again with the Permanent Missions of Canada and Mexico, and lastly with Outright International and Global South partners. Our takeaway from CSW: we need to turn up the volume on queer women’s voices. The world needs to hear what they are saying.
During this CSW, the United States and their collaborators tried to strip trans people from the official text of the UN. They galvanized an international syndicate of anti-LGBTQI+ states to cement a binary definition of gender in official UN doctrine. They are still targeting the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which provides sexual and reproductive health services, and UN Women, which works to advance gender justice. As we watch the United States pull back from a commitment to gender rights, LGBTQI+ refugee organizations, especially those led by and serving LBTQI+ women, are unable to respond to emergencies or emerging crises. This regressive policymaking will hurt trans and queer women around the globe, impacting their safety and mobility.
We learned that the world has a lot of work to do toward building inclusive justice solutions, not just for displaced LBTQI+ women but with them. Rainbow Railroad spent the week elevating the issue of queer forced displacement in every room and in every conversation to mobilize the global community to respond to this crisis. At every meeting and on every panel discussion, we reminded policy makers and allies that the world is backsliding on rights and queer people are feeling it first. We told allies and partners that the world needs more safe, inclusive pathways for queer people. And we told them we have a model that the world can recreate.
The Queer Forced Displacement Initiative (QFDI) is Rainbow Railroad’s next contribution to this work. The QFDI is a unique project to co-create an international network on LGBTQI+ forced displacement. The work we have done building the QFDI has allowed us to reflect on who is missing from the design of protection systems. The QFDI shows us that intersecting forms of discrimination are making it next to impossible for the most vulnerable to access justice.
After two years of work, holding roundtables across the Global South, meeting with other advocates and learning from those who have lived these experiences, it is time to expand our “Initiative” into a “Network.” The QFDN is our new coordinated global network dedicated to improving protection, advocacy, and support for LGBTQI+ people experiencing forced displacement. The QFDN will be a tool of coordination that strengthens protection and community support globally.
After our final conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on May 6-8, our initiative will become a network for action. The QFDN will use its expertise to respond to the crises that continue to face queer people in every region of the globe. This is a collaborative response to the crisis of queer forced displacement. It is the first global network to do this work at scale. And it will grow.
At Rainbow Railroad we operate under the notion that LBTQI+ women must be at every decision-making table, not as tokens but as leaders and experts shaping the very systems meant to protect them. Presence and persistence are an important part of our work, especially when building partnerships grounded in shared values. We met with state representatives from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to explore how feminist policy translates into real-world safety and justice for LBTQI+ women.
We hope to reach this horizon in stabilizing pathways for LBTQI+ women in humanitarian crises, as we believe access to justice comes down to who is counted and who is funded, a fundamental principle and fact in the movement toward queer liberation.
Our data is clear. Between 2015 and 2025, more than ten thousand LBTQI+ women reached out to Rainbow Railroad requesting help. Even though these requests come from different regions with distinct political and social problems, they show us one pattern: When laws criminalize, stigmatize, or fail to protect the most vulnerable women, displacement follows. Following CSW, we will continue to:
- Include LBTQI+ women as visionary partners in our work to build new pathways to safety, and reinforce and expand existing ones.
- Ensure that the specific needs, experiences, and rights of LBTQI+ women are fully integrated, considered and reflected in every humanitarian protection system.
- And call on states and other international donors to support our work, and the work of local, refugee-led organizations through the QFDI.