Website soyeliana.org | Name Eliana Rubashkyn | |
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Born June 25, 1988 (age 35) ( 1988-06-25 ) Bogota, Colombia Occupation Pharmacist, Chemist, Human Rights Advocate | ||
Eliana Rubashkyn (born June 25, 1988) is a Colombian - New Zealand pharmacist, chemist and blog activist, well known internationally for being the first transgender woman recognised under international law as a woman without gender reassignment under the UN's 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a declaration that relates to the worlds stateless and refugees. Her case caught international media attention after being detained at Hong Kong International Airport due to the lack of congruence with her gender identity and her passport photo.
Personal life
Eliana Rubashkyn was born in Colombia to Ukrainian Jewish parents who had moved there in the 70s.
Having already obtained her degree in Pharmacy at the National University of Colombia, Rubashkyn is currently living in Auckland.
Because her gender identity in Colombia was met with little acceptance from society, she decided to start her transition in Taiwan after being granted a scholarship in Taipei Medical University. Within a year, the hormonal transition changed Rubashkyn's physical appearance and the Taiwan Immigration authorities required her to update her passport at the closest Colombian consulate in order to allow her to renew her masters studies for a second year. She travelled to Hong Kong in order to do so, however when she arrived at Chek Lap Kok's immigration, she was detained for over 8 months as her appearance did not match her passport
Facing deportation, she suffered much mistreatment in Chep Lap Kok Airport detention center, yet with the support of Amnesty International and the UNHCR, she was granted refugee status. This, however, led to Rubashkyn becoming a de facto stateless refugee, and because Hong Kong is not a current signatory of the refugee convention of 1951, she was not recognised as refugee and her citizenship was withdrawn. In 2013 the UN sent a petition to the international community to find a third country to resettle her, due to the lack of protection for LGBT people and refugees in that particular special administrative region of China.
Rubashkyn also suffered torture in Kowloon's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where she was placed in restrains, and made to endure different abusive treatments.
Her case caught international attention particularly in Southeast Asia and Colombia where the transgender people still suffer persecution for their gender identity. Her case was also given attention in New Zealand, a country renowned for their stance on equality for the LGBT community.
On December 16, 2013, the UN set a resolution in Rubashkyn's case recognising her as woman under the UNHCR refugee system. Under this recognition, she became the first transgender person recognised as a woman in the Peoples Republic of China and Hong Kong without having undergone sex reassignment surgery.
Finally, in May 2014, New Zealand accepted Rubashkyn's case as a refugee and granted her asylum extending her a universal recognition of her gender, making her case the first in the world where the new gender of a transgendered person is recognised internationally.
The CNN story about her struggle and a short documentary about her life in Hong Kong won an award at 26th GLAAD awards in May 2015.
She married an Israeli man in Auckland on 2 June 2015, but she was forced to use her birth name rather than Eliana on the registration.