Ana Irma Rivera Lassén

Ana Irma Rivera Lassén (born 1950) is a Puerto Rican lawyer, feminist, LGBTQ+ activist, and politician who has been at the intersection of civil rights struggles in Puerto Rico for decades. In 2020, she was elected to the Puerto Rico Senate as a member of the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (MVC) — becoming one of the first openly LGBTQ+ members of the Puerto Rico legislature and representing the emergence of progressive, multi-issue political organizing on the island.

Rivera Lassén's career has spanned multiple civil rights fronts:
- Feminism: She has been a leading feminist voice in Puerto Rico for decades, advocating for reproductive rights, domestic violence protections, and gender equity
- LGBTQ+ rights: As an openly lesbian woman, she has fought for LGBTQ+ rights at a time when Puerto Rican society was deeply conservative on these issues
- Racial justice: She has addressed anti-Black racism in Puerto Rico — a topic historically avoided in public discourse
- Labor rights: She has represented workers and unions in legal battles
- Anti-colonial politics: Her political work connects civil rights to the broader colonial condition

She served as president of the Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Bar Association) — the first Black woman and first openly LGBTQ+ person to hold the position.

Her election to the Senate in 2020 represented a political shift: the emergence of a new progressive movement that connects feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, environmental protection, and anti-colonial politics into a unified platform — breaking from the traditional pro-statehood vs. pro-commonwealth vs. pro-independence party structure.