It’s International Women’s Day. For 17 years, the Secretary of State has awarded women around the globe an International Women of Courage Award.
First Lady Jill Biden and State Secretary Antony Blinken included a transgender woman, a biological male, in the mix today:
Ms. Alba Rueda – ArgentinaAlba Rueda, Argentina’s current Special Envoy for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, was the first Argentine Undersecretary for Diversity Policies in the newly created Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity. Ms. Rueda was the driving force behind Argentina’s executive order on the transgender labor quota in the public sector which was converted into the Transgender Labor Quota Act. She previously worked in the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in their National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) as well as the Argentine Secretariat for Human Rights. She is one of the founders of Argentina Trans Women (MTA) and actively engages with Notitrans, the first transgender magazine in Argentina. She actively campaigned to change the name of the National Women’s Conference to the “Plurinational Conference of Women and Lesbian, Cross-Dresser, Transgender, Bisexual, Intersex and Non-Binary Persons” to include diverse, dissident, and racialized identities. Her activism led her to fight for the Marriage Equality Act, the Gender Identity Act, and the Diana Sacayán and Lohana Berkins Act on the Promotion of Access to Formal Employment by Cross-Dresser, Transsexual and Transgender Persons. Her hope is to establish an LGBTQI+ foreign policy agenda and mainstream it into the various negotiation fora, including into multilateral fora and bilateral relations as well as represent the Global South.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY