A grassroots organization supporting transgender people from South Asia—often known as Hijrah or Kinnar—has opened a physical location in San Francisco after operating for six years without one.
Parivar Bay Area officially opened its brick-and-mortar doors on October 20, coinciding with the celebration of Diwali. The group’s founder, Indian immigrant Anjali Rimi, was brimming with emotion during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“I’m feeling very grateful,” Rimi told KQED. “We have tried many times to see if we can actually have a place where we can belong, we can be ourselves. And being in this physical space, it gives us that rooting.”
She added, “It also looks at our existence as one that is formidable when we are being erased as human beings.”
Phanny Lun, the center’s director of strategy, highlighted the crucial role the center plays at a challenging time. The organization provides legal advice, leadership training, and other support services to transgender immigrants—who are facing intersecting forms of attack under the current administration.
“It’s knowing that there’s community and support,” Lun said. “That’s a really big thing and making sure that our community knows that there are services out there for us. Not just doom and gloom.”
Lun noted that media narratives often make it easy for trans people to believe there is no support available. “That’s not true,” she emphasized, adding that immigrants and trans people “have a place and a group that will be of assistance to them.”
While the center primarily focuses on trans immigrants from South Asia, Rimi clarified that Parivar is open to immigrants from any country.
According to the organization’s website, Parivar Bay Area is the country’s “first & only Kinnar Hijrah led and empowering organization centering Indian South Asian and Global South transgender, gender-diverse, and intersex (TGNCI) immigrants and asylees.” Their goal is to “advance social, economic, and legal equity through advocacy, arts, direct support, and leadership development.”
The website further states, “We reclaim spaces beyond cisnormativity, confront systemic barriers, and build bold, affirming pathways where our communities thrive locally and globally grounded in dignity, belonging, and pride.”
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/first-of-its-kind-trans-immigrant-support-center-opens-permanent-space-after-years-without-one/