New Funding Round Open for Applications

The Action for Trans Health Solidarity Fund is now open for applications. The deadline is 16th July 2016.

Throughout the year, we raise money to help trans and gender variant people who for whatever reason cannot access healthcare treatment through the NHS in a timely manner. We know that the trans healthcare system is in crisis, and that the people who need help accessing support will usually outweigh our capacity to fundraise. As such, we use this application form to identify those who face the most barriers to accessing healthcare treatment in more conventional ways.

Our fund is raised through the generous donations of supporters around the country. Please consider fundraising for us, or donating via the PayPal button below. You can also choose to become a member of Action for Trans Health.

We can now accept donations!

Help us to provide access to essential healthcare today.

Action for Trans Health takes a broad view of healthcare, which recognises that there a wide number of things that can impact on an individual’s healthcare needs. As such, we place no restrictions on what the money can be used for. We do ask that if the money is being used to access medication which will be needed long-term, that the applicant has thought about how to secure the long-term supply after the grant money has been spent. Some things we have funded in the past include:

– appointments with private gender clinics;
– hair removal;
– counselling and therapy;
– rent payments when the money isn’t there because of a health issue;
– mobility aids;
– sick pay;
– part payment of surgery costs;
– wigs, binders, clothes, etc.

Once applications have been received, a member of Action for Trans Health’s administrative staff will anonymise the application text and pass them onto our funding panel who will allocate the funds. We will contact you to let you know whether your application has been successful within two weeks of the funding panel meeting.

Here is the application form to fill in. If you have any questions, please email us at info[at]actionfortranshealth.org.uk

On Orlando

The tragic events in Orlando have been able to happen precisely because of racism, precisely because of the erasure of the race and ethnicity of victims of homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and queerphobic attacks, precisely because we refuse to allow for the experiences of QTIPOC in LGBT communities, and precisely because people of colour, especially Muslims, are so often positioned as violent terrorists.

Despite this, we have seen Sky News reporters try to insist that the gender identities, sexual orientations, races and ethnicities of this attack were irrelevant and incidental. Already we have seen the Leave campaign try to exploit the deaths of primarily Latinx queer and trans people of colour in Orlando to further Islamaphobia within the UK.

This event cannot be separated from the systemic violence towards trans and gender non-conforming people of colour in the US and South America and it cannot be separated from Islamaphobic violence across the world. It is not by chance that this attack took place at a night that used black and Latina drag queens on its advertising. Nor is it by chance that people are trying to connect the attacker to ISIS and radical Islam.

The facts – that attacker Omar Mateen was American, loved the police, had a gun license and worked for G4S – are being ignored in favour of divide and conquer tactics that would pit LGBT communities against communities of colour and communities of faith in the wake of an attack on queer and trans people of colour.

Remember that many of the same people who condemn this attack and make public appearances to mourn these deaths and talk about ‘radical Islam’ are the same people that do not care that queer and trans people die through lack of access to HRT and surgeries, that queer and trans people die as a result of police violence and brutality, and that queer and trans people will die as a result of the decision not to fund PrEP.

Remember that Mateen worked for the same G4S who run private prisons and who privately police deportations of refugees and asylum seekers, including queer and trans refugees and asylum seekers. Remember that G4S are in the business of upholding and enforcing racist, queerphobic, transphobic, disablist and classist oppression. Now, in a time where Islamaphobic violence is on the rise, where queer and transphobic violence is on the rise, where racist violence is on the rise, we must stand together in solidarity more than ever.

Action for Trans Health stands in solidarity with the Latinx community, with Muslims, with immigrants and asylum seekers, with queer and trans people of colour around the world in the shadow of this devastating event.

We want to remind you, our community, to take the time to you need to feel and heal today. Take time to rage and be angry, take time to sob and cry and scream, take time to sit quietly and think, take time to mourn. We want to remind you that we are not powerless and that when we organise and come together in solidarity we can fight back. We want to remind you that we will organise and we will fight back.

The Trans Case to Remain in the EU

Today is the deadline for registering to vote in the #EURef. This blog is the text from a series of tweets @act4transhealth

Health: the #EU allows freedom of movement across Europe, meaning that it easier for the NHS to recruit to make up staff shortfalls #EURef

Tory policies cutting NHS student’s bursaries means less recruitment in the UK, the #EU is an increasingly important source of staff #EURef

An understaffed and overworked #NHS cannot meet its equality duties, educate its staff on #trans issues, or fund better services #EURef

Health: UK citizens will not automatically be entitled to free healthcare abroad if we leave, this harms those who cannot afford to pay #EURef

Health: #trans people visiting the UK will not automatically receive free healthcare here, increasing health inequalities #EURef

Health: #TTIP may dismantle the #NHS, but this Tory govt would sign up. In Europe, there is a growing movement against it #EURef

A privatised healthcare system would spell disaster for #trans ppls access to healthcare. In Europe, we can fight against it together #EURef

The UK leads on #LGBT rights in Europe, LGBT MEPs across Europe are asking us not to leave but to press for change in Europe #EURef

We get loads of workers protection law from the #EU. #Trans ppl are often un(der)employed & will feel those rights been taken away #EURef

#Brexit will lead to the closing down of our borders, meaning more #trans ppl suffering under the border regime #EURef

The #EURef debate seems irrelevant; the two sides both complete wankers (true), but #Brexit will harm trans ppl in the UK & elsewhere

Whats more, the #EU can be better, do better. Another Europe is possible; one which isn’t a fortress, one which fights neoliberalism #EURef

Register to vote today at https://www.eureferendum.gov.uk/register-to-vote/ and pls consider voting #Remain #EURef