Activism

Khan-do attitude

by Ben Geman

SURINA KHAN: up for the challenge of becoming IGLHRC's executive director.

The Boston area is losing a good activist to the West Coast, but if she does well at her new gig, it could be great news for foreign countries -- including her own place of birth.

Surina Khan, a 32-year-old research analyst at Somerville's Political Research Associates (and an occasional Phoenix contributor), has been named executive director of the San Francisco-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), a group that works to protect and advocate for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people, and people with HIV and AIDS, around the world.

When she leaves PRA, a watchdog group that tracks extremist movements, Khan will become just the second person to head the 10-year-old IGLHRC. The move gives the Pakistan-born activist and writer a chance to help people in countries where lesbians and gay men sometimes face arbitrary arrest, denial of freedoms, and even torture or murder.

"When I first came out, I was very active in the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered community in the United States, and I used to say if I had real courage I would go back to Pakistan and do this work," says Khan, who moved here at age five and still has family in Pakistan. "To be able to work at IGLHRC and to do the international work that I have been wanting to do for so many years is a dream come true."

Khan's arrival comes as the group is undergoing a transformation. For years, according to board of directors co-chair Katherine Franke, the group pushed big mainstream human-rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to fight abuses of lesbians and gays. Now that the mainstream groups have started paying attention to such issues, IGLHRC is expanding its support for anti-discrimination activists in other countries.

"We are really moving into a whole new period of growth where we are not just back-up to human-rights agencies, but are actually a large human-rights agency of our own," Franke says. "We are looking at opening up offices in other parts of the world to diversify the work we do and have a foothold in, say, Eastern Europe or sub-Saharan Africa."

It adds up to big task for Khan -- far bigger, even, than finding a San Francisco apartment. "I'm thrilled at the opportunity," she says. "I have been wanting to do international work for a while, and as much as I have grown and learned and appreciated being at Political Research Associates, I'm ready for this challenge and this important work."