Tulip Tree

Rainbow Railroad is a Canadian and U.S. charitable organization that helps global lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other sexual minority/gender-nonconforming (LGBTQI+) individuals escape persecution and violence in their home countries. Founded in 2006, the organization's name and concept draw inspiration from the Underground Railroad, used during the 19th century by enslaved Africans in the United States to escape to free states and/or into Canada.^[3]

Since its founding, Rainbow Railroad has assisted more than 13,000 LGBTQI+ refugees and internally displaced persons, including more than 2,000 individuals assisted through its Emergency Travel Support (ETS) program.^[4] The organization is based in Toronto and New York City.

Rainbow Railroad began in 2006 as a small, Toronto-based volunteer collective with the shared objective of assisting at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals facing violence and persecution find refuge in safer regions globally.^[5]

Effecting resettlements one or two at a time out of Jamaica, Nigeria, and Uganda in its earliest days, the organization enjoyed gradually increasing efficiency and professionalization. It earned charitable status from the Canada Revenue Agency in 2013,^[6] hired Executive Director Justin Taylor as its first full-time staffer in 2014,^[7] and acquired 501(c)(3) status (as American Friends of Rainbow Railroad and later Rainbow Railroad USA) in the United States in 2015.^[7][8]

Upon Rainbow Railroad's 10th anniversary in 2016, the Winnipeg-based Upside Down Tree Foundation gifted the organization with a transformational $400,000 grant.^[7] The gift provided critical funding for execution of a three-year strategic plan under which the organization's leadership would prioritize an expanded capacity, service mix, and reach to previously unserviced areas of the world. The same year, Kimahli Powell was tapped to join the organization as Taylor's successor.^[7][9]

After revelations in 2017 about anti-gay purges and concentration camps in Chechnya (and on a smaller scale in neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan), Rainbow Railroad mobilized the emergency evacuation of approximately 70 Chechen men to safer countries in collaboration with the Russian LGBT Network.^[10][11][12] The resettlement, then the largest intervention in Rainbow Railroad's history, featured prominently both in a May 2019 instalment of the American television news magazine show 60 Minutes and in a July 2019 issue of Time magazine.^[13][14] The appearances served to bolster the organization's international profile.

The number of resettlements facilitated by Rainbow Railroad would grow annually from its inception. By year end 2019, the organization had helped more than 800 individuals resettle through ETS.^[15]

The growth in annual resettlements facilitated by Rainbow Railroad slowed amid worldwide travel restrictions brought on when the outbreak of COVID-19 grew to pandemic levels in spring 2020. Facing uninterrupted help requests during this period, the organization's leadership turned to a focus on complementary services — chiefly government-assisted resettlements, temporary cash support to those requesting help, grant support to locally acting partner organizations, information/network referrals, and crisis readiness.^[16]

The pivot enabled not only a sustained response to help requests in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a rapid and significant increase in cases deemed resolved per revised KPI tracking — i.e., in 2019 Rainbow Railroad facilitated 200 cross-border resettlements; in 2020 the organization resettled 75 individuals, but was able to assist an additional 426 individuals across a more robust complementary service mix.^[16] In subsequent years, these areas of work would increasingly constitute a suite of discrete programs.

In 2021, Rainbow Railroad partnered with the Government of Canada and Canadian human rights education centre Equitas on the Act Together for Inclusion Fund (ACTIF). The fund enabled work between Rainbow Railroad and six partnering agencies across Central and South America and Sub-Saharan Africa to build LGBTQI+ advocacy and asylum seeker support capacity in the regions and to develop alternative resettlement pathways that did not rely on North American and European governments.^[17]

After the August 2021 fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban regime, Rainbow Railroad raised concerns about the situation for LGBTQI+ people living in the country.^[18] Between August 2021 and June 2022, Rainbow Railroad helped to resettle 247 LGBTQI+ Afghans in Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.^[19]

In June 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government announced that Rainbow Railroad was being named a direct refugee referral partner with the ability to identify and recommend up to 250 at-risk LGBTQI+ refugees per year for resettlement in Canada.^[20][21]

Through its ETS program, Rainbow Railroad provides travel consultation and help in securing such essentials as pre-travel medical and legal services, travel documentation, temporary accommodation, land and air transit, and asylum-claiming assistance upon arrival in safer countries.

Cross-border resettlements falling under the ETS program are executed through routine commercial and/or private travel channels as an option for those at-risk individuals whose circumstances do not meet eligibility or priority requirements for government-assisted resettlements.

ETS was Rainbow Railroad’s initial mode of intervention and remains its core service. As of year-end 2023, the organization had helped 1,900 people from 34 different countries resettle through ETS since its founding.^[20]

Rainbow Railroad provides temporary direct cash assistance to those who, for various reasons, are not able to leave their country of residence.

Recipients of cash assistance may use these funds to secure such essential needs as safer accommodation, food, gender-affirming healthcare, mental health supports, or legal services. As well, some recipients have used cash assistance to offset time off work sufficient to explore safer employment opportunities or alternate in-country emergency travel options. Human rights defenders have used cash assistance to safeguard themselves while helping others and sustaining their activism in their home countries.

The length of cash assistance provided to individuals can vary based on their unique circumstances, but Rainbow Railroad reports that as of 2023 such support ranges between one and six months.^[22]

Rather than attempting to execute its work from within queer-hostile countries, Rainbow Railroad invests in partner organizations, activist networks, and human rights defenders that have expertise in delivering on-the-ground relief services to at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals in these parts of the world. Since 2006, Rainbow Railroad has partnered with over 50 such partners across 28 countries, ensuring they have critical funds, network connections, and other resources to do their work.^[23]

Antipathy toward LGBTQI+ individuals combines with other regional trends to occasionally trigger crises targeting queer communities. Rainbow Railroad regularly reports via its website and social media channels on related instances of anti-queer legislation, heightened surveillance and intimidation, mass arrests, torture, disappearances, and killings in various parts of the world. Through tracking these instances — and the geopolitical developments that historically have preceded them — Rainbow Railroad is able to ready a rapid response, often entailing the expedited implementation of its combined program suite, as needed.

Crisis Response is implemented in collaboration with global partners. As Rainbow Railroad explores models for a worldwide network performing this work, in 2023 the organization supported the launch of the Regional Network for Human LGBTQ+ Mobility. A coalition of 10 Latin American organizations, the Network aims to develop multipronged supports for displaced LGBTQI+ persons in the region, including standing “whole of route” migration assistance as well as advocacy and lobbying for more favourable international border policies.^[24]

Rainbow Railroad provides information about and referrals to the services of other LGBTQI-facing organizations around the world. These referrals are meant variably to work alongside the interventions conducted by Rainbow Railroad, in service to those individuals for whom locally accessible supports may be sufficient to meet their safety needs, or for individuals whose circumstances fall outside of Rainbow Railroad’s own capacity or mandate.

In addition to facilitating connections to and among other service delivery organizations, Rainbow Railroad provides documents such as letters of support as needed.

Amid year-over-year inclines in the number of help requests received by Rainbow Railroad, Information Services & Referrals is an increasingly utilized part of its service mix. The organization reported a 77-percent increase, for example, in the number of individuals benefitted from Information Services & Referrals throughout 2023 as compared to 2022.^[25]

In complement to its own cross-border resettlement coordination, Rainbow Railroad works with global governing bodies to pursue a variety of direct government-assisted pathways.

In June 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government announced that Rainbow Railroad was being named a direct refugee referral partner with the ability to identify and recommend up to 250 at-risk LGBTQI+ refugees per year for resettlement in Canada.^[26][21]

The partnership, personally announced first by Trudeau at Rainbow Railroad’s annual Freedom Party Toronto gala,^[27] was the result of several years of advocacy by the organization for a dedicated LGBTQI+ refugee referral pathway. According to the organization, the partnership made them among the first civil society agencies outside of the UNHCR to enjoy such a relationship with the Canadian federal government and the only queer-specific agency to enjoy such a relationship with any national government.^[28]

Under Rainbow Railroad’s Private Sponsorship Program (PSR), the organization collaborates with volunteer settlement teams to support LGBTQI+ newcomers to Canada.

Individuals eligible for this program must meet the Government of Canada’s definition of a Convention refugee – i.e., a displaced person not yet in Canada who cannot return to their country of nationality or habitual residence, cannot integrate in their country of refuge, and has no timely solution to resettle in a country other than Canada.

Settlement teams take on the responsibility of arranging temporary housing and 12 months of financial support for their matched newcomer, greeting them upon arrival in Canada, and assisting them in gathering employment resources, social services, public benefits, a social network, and other essentials to successful integration.^[29]

In 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration created a new refugee sponsorship program, Welcome Corps, which identifies and supports Communities of Care, groups of five or more private American citizens or permanent residents convened to support a refugee in their community during their early days of residence in the United States.^[30]

Rainbow Railroad has multiple points of involvement with Welcome Corps. It advised in the formation of the program and was selected as one of four organizations who can refer refugees into Welcome Corp. In addition, Rainbow Railroad is, itself, a Community of Care and works to recruit, train, and support other queer-friendly Communities of Care in LGBTQI+-affirming cities across the United States.^[31]

Holding the Biden Administration accountable to its commitment to advance LGBTQI+ rights globally, Rainbow Railroad advocated for a direct referral mechanism for queer refugees hoping to resettle in the United States as well as for a prioritization of urgent cases and a review of refugee detention laws to ensure the safety of LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.^[32][33] In 2023, the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration granted Priority-1 (P-1) refugee referral power to the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Persons.^[34] Rainbow Railroad has cultivated a relationship with the envoy’s office toward the goal of utilizing the P-1 channel to assist urgent LGBTQI+ resettlements to the U.S.^[35]

As Rainbow Railroad continues to work with governments to bolster resettlement pathways, the organization advocates for the improved accounting of LGBTQI+-identified asylum seekers to inform queer-friendly refinements to national refugee admission policies.^[35]

Rainbow Railroad accepts help requests via a secure online portal. As the organization receives more help requests annually than it can service, it has developed a system of triage articulated using the acronym V.I.T.A.L.^[36]

Verify. In collaboration with local partners, Rainbow Railroad verifies the details and urgency of each case through interviews, documentary evidence, and supporting testimony. The organization applies a queer-sensitive, trauma-informed, survivor-centered approach in this process.

Initiate. Upon verification of case details, case managers identify and initiate appropriate intervention pathways, tapping the assistance of local partnering agents as needed.

Travel. If resettlement is required, Rainbow Railroad facilitates travel to safer locations either inside or outside a case individual’s country of residence. Where necessary, the organization also arranges asylum-claiming assistance upon arrival.

Advocate. Rainbow Railroad advocates for expansive and reliable pathways to safety — and policies that preempt their need — in collaboration with governments, international authorities, academics, local partners, affected populations, and civil society.

Learn. Rainbow Railroad continually monitors and evaluates its programs to enhance service delivery and impact, implementing insights gained from LGBTQI+ people at risk. The organization also strives to serve as thought leaders, sharing emerging trends, recommendations, and situational analyses with the global humanitarian community, governments, and grassroots actors.

Rainbow Railroad received the 2018 Bonham Centre Award from the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto for its work helping LGBT refugees in Canada.^[37]

In 2020, the organization's work was highlighted in an episode of Canada's Drag Race. During the eighth episode of the season, which aired on August 20, five gay men who had moved to Canada with Rainbow Railroad's assistance were given drag makeovers as the main challenge for the week.^[38] The winner of this challenge, Priyanka, won a $10,000 donation to Rainbow Railroad in her name.^[38]

In 2021, Rainbow Railroad was recognized with the GAY TIMES Honour for International Community Trailblazer at the fifth annual GAY TIMES Honours celebration in London. The award was presented by LGBTQI+ and human rights activist Blair Imani.^[39]

• Dignity Network
• Gay community
• List of LGBT rights organizations
• LGBT migration
• LGBT rights by country or territory
• Russian LGBT Network
• Sexual Minorities Uganda International
• U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Persons
• Welcome Corps

• Official website
• Rainbow Railroad Facebook
• Rainbow Railroad Instagram
• Rainbow Railroad LinkedIn
• Rainbow Railroad YouTube
• Video segment & Transcript of report on 60 Minutes (CBS news magazine)
• Video segment on Who They Help: Ray