Rainbow Railroad: An LGBTQI Refugee-Support Organization Based in New York and Toronto

Rainbow Railroad is a North American charitable organization focused on helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people escape violence and persecution in their home countries. Its bases in New York City and Toronto make it part of the LGBTQI support landscape in both cities, while its work reaches people facing danger beyond North America.

The organization was established in 2006. Its name and organizing idea draw on the Underground Railroad, the network associated with enslaved African-Americans seeking escape to free states. Rainbow Railroad applies that historical reference to contemporary efforts to help LGBTQI people relocate away from threats in their countries of origin.

According to the supplied organizational history, Rainbow Railroad has assisted nearly 15,000 people since it was founded. More than 1,500 of those people received emergency relocation assistance. The figures describe the organization’s overall work and do not specify how many people have been assisted through its New York City base.

Rainbow Railroad received charitable status from the Canada Revenue Agency in 2013 and became a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in the United States in 2015. Those designations reflect its formal charitable presence in the two countries where it is based. The available information does not provide details about a New York office’s staffing, programs or public-facing services.

The organization has also responded to specific international crises. Following revelations about anti-gay purges and detention camps in Chechnya, as well as reports involving neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan, Rainbow Railroad began emergency efforts to help LGBTQI people leave the region in collaboration with the Russian LGBT Network. The source material also identifies work connected to the situation after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021, but does not provide further details about that effort.

Human rights lawyer Ilana Landsberg-Lewis became Rainbow Railroad’s executive director in 2026. For New York’s LGBTQI community, the organization’s presence offers a local point of connection to an international network addressing persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity or related LGBTQI status. The supplied information, however, does not describe eligibility rules, application procedures or services available directly to New York residents.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.npr.org/2017/09/08/549549949/canada-secretly-sneaks-lgbt-russians-out-of-chechnya - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rainbow-railroad-the-organization-saving-lgbt-citizens-from-hostile-governments-60-minutes-2019-05-19/ - https://www.rainbowrailroad.org/ - https://time.com/5633588/anti-gay-purge-chechnya-victim/ - https://web.archive.org/web/20180401092818/http://sds.utoronto.ca/event/bonham-centre-awards-gala/ - https://www.advocate.com/television/2020/8/21/canadas-drag-race-makes-over-lgbtq-refugees-unforgettable-episode Image rights Photograph description: Metro-North M7a stabled on Grand Central Terminal Track 32 featuring the rainbow heart sticker for Pride Month 2023 Creator: Lexcie. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMetro-North_M7a_Rainbow_Heart_Sticker_Grand_Central.jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.