Graydon believes that beauty is a feeling. Our mission is to help you feel your best, inside and out no matter who you are. We support the LGBTQI+ community with the Rainbow Railroad Organization through our brand when you purchase a bottle of Superfood Serum. For us, Pride isn’t just the month of June — it is all year long.
Rainbow Railroad is an international non-profit, with offices in Toronto and New York City as well as a network of contract staff and volunteers around the world created to rescue LGBTQI+ persons in imminent danger from state-tolerated anti-gay terror. The organization's core Emergency Travel Support program provides vital support to LGBTQI+ people facing an immediate threat to their lives and helps to identify a pathway out of their current location to a new country where they can safely resettle and live openly without fear.
Rainbow Railroad provides information and resources, coordinates referrals to local refugee and LGBTQI+ organizations, helps individuals understand their rights as asylum seekers and provides short-term financial assistance to keep them safe in their current location while they wait for travel assistance.
Founded in 2006, this volunteer organization is run by a diverse group of LGBTQI+ activists and human rights defenders who wanted to do more to address the levels of violence LGBTQI+ people are facing. Working in all regions around the world in partnerships, this network of activists and human rights defenders advocate for their rights globally.
The name was inspired by the Underground Railroad, a 19th-century network of activists who assisted African American people escape enslavement in the Southern US. The organization helped these people escape to freedom via a secret network of safe houses and hiding places during the United States Civil War.
Since its founding in 2006, Rainbow Railroad has received hundreds of requests for emergency help from people in Uganda, Jamaica, Syria, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and several other countries. The people they help are often experiencing family violence, police harassment, employment discrimination or forced conversion therapy. In some cases, they endure life-threatening attacks perpetrated by members of their families or communities.
Sadly, the number of people in need of help is so great, the organization can help only those in the most imminent danger of violence, imprisonment, or death. At any given time, Rainbow Railroad is processing 30 to 50 open cases, verifying the facts of each case, connecting endangered individuals to people and organizations in their areas who are in a position to assist, and ultimately put them on a path of escape to a safe country where they can seek asylum. Rainbow Railroad provides information and resources, coordinates referrals to local refugee and LGBTQI+ organizations, helps individuals understand their rights as asylum seekers and provides short-term financial assistance to keep them safe in their current location while they wait for travel assistance.
Without the means to help everyone who reaches out, they do offer a variety of programs to support individuals’ unique needs and circumstances working with partners on the ground to provide safety. With approximately 80 million displaced people around the world, Rainbow Railroad is on track to receive 10,000 requests for help in 2022 for LGBTQI+ people whose lives are in danger. Since its founding in 2006, Rainbow Railroad has provided life-saving support to more than 8,000 LGBTQI+ individuals, including helping 1491 people resettle to safer countries.
Learn more about Rainbow Railroad: rainbowrailroad.org
