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A QUESTION TO NORWAY​

© Kristin Lyseggen 2013

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When I met Grace in Oakland, California and learned she was from Liberia, I proposed to her an idea that had troubled me ever since December 10, 2011.​​​

Text/video/photographs by Kristin Lyseggen

San Francisco May 17, 2013

Grace was working away in the office at TGI Justice, Oakland, replying many of the hundreds of letters they recieve from people in prison when we first met. I asked her how she felt about the Liberian President getting the Nobel Peace Price.

A few weeks later on May 17, the International Day Against Transphobia and Homophobia (and Norway's Constitution Day) I visited Grace in San Francisco to record her voice and her answers to my question; "Grace - what do you want to say to Norway's Nobel Peace Price Commitee ?" My question ​​was short and simple. The answer is much more complicated.

Grace can never go back to her homeland Liberia. She will most likely be prosecuted. Grace is a transgender women. From a country where the president is a woman who won the Nobel Peace Price in 2011. ​

Born a biological male in Liberia's capital Monrovia, Grace has survived hate crimes, acid attack, and three years in solitary confinement at San Quentin State Prison, California. After she was finally granted US asylum on the Torture Act, she settled in San Francisco and is now working as a motivational speaker and advocate for transgender immigrant rights in US. ​

Please watch the video above.

Video, interview and photographs © Kristin Lyseggen 2013.

My Land is Your Land. Your Land is My Land

Negev, Israel 2011

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