2020-03-02_Time_Magazine_International_Edition

Shireen McSpadden

AGAINST AGEISM

lasT year, caliFornia governor

Gavin Newsom signed an executive

order that would create a “Master Plan

for Aging,” acknowledging that the

state’s over-65 population is projected

to grow from 5.5 million in 2016 to

8.6 million by 2030—and that the in-

creased elderly population will require

attention and investment. Shireen Mc-

Spadden, the executive director for San

Francisco’s Department of Disability

and Aging Services, is central to the ef-

fort. In late 2019, McSpadden, 56, was

a key part of the formation of Re-

framing Aging San Francisco, a

campaign that aims to empower

older adults in the city. She sees

ageism as an equity issue, one

that leaves behind essential com-

munity members simply because of

negative assumptions. “As we age in

community, we need to continue to be

a part of society,” she says. “That’s what

keeps us going as humans.”

—mahiTa gaJanan

Simran Jeet Singh

FAIRNESS FOR ALL FAITHS

groWing Up sikh in san anTonio,

Simran Jeet Singh felt “highly visible

yet entirely unknown,” he says. He was

a high school senior when a streak of

hate crimes against Sikhs swept the U.S.

in the months after 9/11, and he realized

that “ignorance is actually a matter of

life and death.” He’s turned that drive

into a career as a scholar and advocate

for religious freedom. On his podcast

Spirited, he interviews prominent fig-

ures about spirituality, and he has a reg-

ular column for Religion News Service.

Notably, he’s written about the idea of

“religious supremacy.” Just as white su-

premacy is a dangerous thread in Amer-

ican life, he argues, so is the idea that

one religion is superior. For Singh, 35,

religious equality requires challenging

the assumption that Christianity is the

default. “Then,” he says, “we can actu-

ally create an even playing field for peo-

ple of different traditions.”

On Aug. 25, he’ll release a children’s

to be its first U.S. House delegate.

The position isn’t Teehee’s only

policy making first. As the first senior

policy adviser for Native American af-

fairs in the White House Domestic Policy

Council, she spearheaded the provision

in the 2013 Violence Against Women Act

reauthorization that lets tribal courts

prosecute non-Indians who commit cer-

tain domestic-violence crimes on Indian

lands. Over half of American Indian/

Native Alaska women have experienced

sexual violence. “Tribes, like other juris-

dictions, should have the ability to pros-

ecute crimes committed on their lands,”

she says, “making sure American Indian

women have the same protections that

women have in this country.”

Teehee is still waiting to be seated

in Congress, where, like the delegate

from D.C., she would be non voting. But

the symbolism of her presence would

be strong, she says, as “an extra voice in

the room” for her tribe and all others.

—olivia B. Waxman

Alice Wong

AMPLIFYING THE

DISABLED COMMUNITY

as The FoUnder and direcTor oF

the Disability Visibility Project, an

online community that amplifies the

voices of disabled people in culture,

Alice Wong is familiar with the host of

challenges currently facing disabled

people, such as proposed rules by the

Social Security Administration that

would cut access to benefits, or a new

“public charge” immigration rule that

will exclude disabled people from stay-

ing in the country if they depend on

public benefits.

Although the 1990 Americans with

Disabilities Act ushered in parking

spots and elevators for disabled peo-

ple, Wong, 45, says such efforts aren’t

enough to protect the community.

“There are constant attempts to de-

crease our rights, keep us separate

and take away control of our narra-

tives,” says Wong, who is currently

putting together an anthology of first-

person stories and essays from those in

the disability community, set to come

out this summer. “We need everyone to

fight back with us.” —m.g.

book, Fauja Singh Keeps Going, the true

story of a Sikh man who was the old-

est person to run a marathon. “This has

been my dream,” he says. “Growing up,

we never saw a Sikh character in a chil-

dren’s book.” But his children will.

—madeleine carlisle

Chase Strangio

DEMANDING LGBTQ RIGHTS

Transgender commUniTies in The

U.S. are fighting for rights across all fac-

ets of life, from demanding access to re-

strooms to protesting laws that aim to

curb their medical care. And

Chase Strangio, who serves

as the deputy director for

transgender justice with

the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV

Project, is leading many

of those battles. One was

in South Dakota, against a

bill that would make it a crime

for doctors to give hormone therapies to

trans youth; the legislation was defeated

in committee in February. Strangio, 37,

says the stakes couldn’t be higher; per

Human Rights Campaign figures, at least

26 trans or gender-non conforming peo-

ple, over 90% of whom were black trans

women, were killed by violence in 2019.

For Strangio, the work is about mak-

ing clear how acts of discrimination

against trans people are connected to

a larger movement for equality. “What

we need is a broader demand for justice

and allied mobilization that connects

trans survival to other movements for

justice,” he says. —m.g.

Kimberly Teehee

A VOICE FOR NATIVE AMERICANS

in 1835, TUcked aWay in a
treaty ceding southeast-
ern Georgia Cherokee
land to the U.S., the
government agreed
that the Cherokee peo-
ple “shall be entitled to
a delegate in the House
of Representatives.” Last
August, the largest federally recognized
tribe finally took Congress up on this
DIGGINS-SMITH: TIM CLAYTON—CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; STRANGIO, TEEHEE: AP offer by appointing Kimberly Teehee, 51,

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