The Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is a legal aid organization based in New York City at the Miss Major-Jay Toole Building for Social Justice that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming.
The project was named for Sylvia Rivera, a transgender activist and veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, who died the same year that SRLP was formed.
SRLP is a collective organization founded on the understanding that gender self-determination is inextricably intertwined with racial, social and economic justice.
We believe that in order to create meaningful political participation and leadership, we must have access to basic means of survival and safety from violence.The goals of the organization are to provide access to legal services for low-income transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people, provide public education and policy reform to end state-sanctioned discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression.
[3] As Dean Spade himself puts it, "Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) is committed to providing people with some basic services.
"[2] A large part of the group's work revolves around prison reform, as detention makes up the final step of the criminal justice system.
The criminal punishment system has the same biases (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia) that advocates of these laws want to eliminate.
[9] SRLP, in association with Lambda Legal, won Rodriguez a substantial sum of cash in return for the emotional distress imposed on her.