In Response to House Oversight Hearing Attacks on The TransLatin@ Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 5, 2025
On June 4, 2025, during a House Oversight hearing titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” testimony was presented that deliberately targeted The TransLatin@ Coalition—a nationally respected organization grounded in the lived experiences of trans and immigrant communities—for receiving federal funding to support its life-saving work.
Let us be unequivocally clear:
The TransLatin@ Coalition is not radical. Survival is not radical. Liberation is not radical.
What is radical is the attempt to weaponize political theater to frame dignity, access to healthcare, and safety for some of the most vulnerable communities in this country as partisan threats.
The testimony delivered by Scott Walter grossly misrepresents the mission and values of the Coalition, using inflammatory rhetoric to dehumanize trans people and immigrants. It is a political tactic intended to erode public trust in grassroots organizations doing the real and often invisible work of healing and justice.
Let us remind the public what these federal funds actually supported:
Workforce Development for transand gender expansive and intersex (TGI) individuals facing systemic exclusion. Funded by the Department of Labor (DOL).
Violence prevention services to support TGI people disproportionately impacted by violence. Funded by the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW)/(DOL).
Substance abuse and mental health services, Funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),
What this hearing calls “radical,” we call necessary.
We stand in unwavering solidarity with all organizations that speak truth to power, protect marginalized lives, and advocate for futures where TGI people—especially trans people of color—can live safely, freely, and fully.
If there is a crisis in how public funds are used, it is not that they reach organizations like The TransLatin@ Coalition—it is that they rarely do.
We urge our communities, funders, and elected officials to see through the politics of fear and continue investing in movements rooted in love, justice, and liberation. “In this time, more than ever, is when we all need to stand in solidarity and defend the funds to provide the critical services that our community needs and deserves!” said Bamby Salcedo, President/CEO of The TransLatin@ Coalition.
