The state of Arkansas’s rigid policies regarding the LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender Arkansans, made it difficult for Angela Giampolo to do her job Tuesday. Still, she stuck to the plan.
Giampolo, a lawyer based in Philadelphia, is the founder of the Caravan of Hope, an initiative that offers free legal services to LGBTQ+ people in underserved and rural areas around the country.
Tuesday, Giampolo and her team set up shop in an RV parked outside the Utopia Empowerment Center, helping people who walked up to them from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Giampolo said she helped people set up simple wills and powers of attorney, but Arkansas’s new rules that prohibit using “X” as a gender marker on state-issued ID meant Giampolo didn’t get to help people as much on Tuesday as she had wanted to.
Arkansas law requires transgender people who want to change their gender marker on their birth certificate to undergo surgery to match their chosen gender. It is not clear what kind of surgery is needed.
The vagueness behind the law is why Giampolo says she was told by people on the ground in Arkansas that it would be better to have a lawyer who lives here and can stay with a client throughout the entire process of trying to change their gender marker.
“[For gender marker changes in Arkansas] it is highly recommended that folks use an attorney, because everything’s in flux and there’s a lot of gray area and if you want your gender marker changed, you need someone who can advocate for you as far as the medical transitioning that you have done,” Giampolo said.
“Knowing that, I decided to really refocus this particular stop in this city on some simple wills and powers of attorney, which we’ve done for everybody, and a lot of trans folks, gender-diverse folks, everyone that’s come through has had an unsupportive, important family member — one parent, let’s say, completely unsupportive of who they are. And unfortunately, if anything were to happen to them, that parent is their legal next of kin. So getting their powers of attorney in place is one of the most important things trans folks and gender diverse folks can do to protect themselves if they have unsupportive people in their life.”
Giampolo is touring 17 cities on the Caravan of Hope.
Giampolo said that she and her team haven’t been able to do as much as they have with people in other states due to Arkansas laws, but they were still able to help several of the people who came through, and coming to Little Rock was definitely worth it.
“It’s just been a very lovely day overall,” Giampolo said. “The weather got better — it always shines down on the gays, I love that. So we weren’t able to do as much as we have in other cities for folks, due to the state of the laws. But again, it’s called the Caravan of Hope, and there’s no mention of law, legal or law firm in the name. It’s all about hope and being in community, and I’d like to think that we brought that here today.”
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