Citizenship American | ||
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Full Name Isais Celestino Noyola Born July 22, 1978 (age 38) ( 1978-07-22 ) Houston, Texas U.S. Residence San Francisco, California U.S. Occupation Community Organizer
Activist | ||
Tdov 2016 isa noyola
Isa Noyola (born July 22, 1978) is a Latina transgender activist and national leader in the LGBT immigrant rights movement. In 2015 she organized the first national trans anti-violence protest, an event that brought together over 100 activists, mostly trans women of color, to address the epidemic of violence trans communities face especially as race and gender intersectionality relates to immigration and incarceration as they deal with trans-phobic systems.
Contents
- Tdov 2016 isa noyola
- Early life
- Transgender Law Center
- Not1More
- Other activities
- ElLa Para TransLatinas
- References
Early life
Noyola was born in Houston, Texas, to father Celestino Noyola and mother Anita Noyola (née Del Carmen Gonzales). She grew up in California. Her roots and family come from Comitán, Chiapas and San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Noyola has stated she began to identify as a feminist after she was shamed as a child for pretending to be Wonder Woman. She was born and raised in the evangelical Pentecostal faith, where her parents were pastors and ran a church in the San Francisco Bay area for over 25 years.
Noyola identifies as a translatina, gender fluid, activist, two-spirit, queer, "jota", "muxerista", and "chingona" cultural organizer.
Transgender Law Center
Noyola is currently the Director of Programs at the Transgender Law Center which is a nonprofit organization working to remedy discrimination against transgender people. She also works on bringing the community issues directly to the systems that oppress the translatina community such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and educating politicians who often know very little about transgender people.
#Not1More
Noyola works with the #Not1More organization to build collaboration to change unjust immigration laws.
Other activities
She is on the advisory board for the El/La (Para Translatinas), FAMILIA:Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project.
On May 28, 2015, Noloya along with about 70 other LGBTQ immigrants and allies formed a human chain blocking the entrance to the Santa Ana Police Department, protesting for an end to the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, particularly those who are part of the LGBTQ community. They were calling on the City of Santa Ana, California to terminate its contract with Immigration Customs Enforcement which imprisons trans and queer people in abusive conditions in the Santa Ana City Jail. The police declared the protest an unlawful assembly resulting in 5 arrests including Noyola.
El/La (Para TransLatinas)
Noyola founded and works as a national advocate with El/La (Para TransLatinas), an organization for transgender Latinas (transLatina) that works to build collective vision and action to promote survival and improve TransLatinas quality of life in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Noyola's time with El/La her intersectional approach has been central to El/La's success. In 2013 the grassroots leadership development organization won a $200,000 grant from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission for violence-prevention work. Noyola says it marked the first time that trans Latinas received funding to develop community leaders in this way.