Spring 2017 Solidarity Fund is Now Open!

The Action for Trans Health Solidarity Fund is now open for applications. The deadline is 9th April 2017.

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. A proportion of this funding round will be ring fenced for trans people of colour. 

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

Solidarity Fund Now Open for Applications

Our solidarity fund is now open for applications. The deadline for applications is the 15th November 2015.

Who can apply?
We are offering small grants for to help UK based trans and intersex people access healthcare. Any trans, cure nonbinary, intersex or otherwise gender nonconforming person based in the UK can apply. We have a specific fund ringfenced for grants to black trans people and are particularly keen to receive applications from trans people of colour.

What can you apply for?
We take a very broad definition of healthcare, and in the past have paid for appointments with doctors, therapy sessions, stipends to support people undergoing surgery, binders / packers / breast forms, clothes etc. We only 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. Its a small fund and we are unlikely to give a grant of over £500 to one individual.

How can I donate to fund?
100% of our donations and membership dues received through the website currently go into our solidarity fund. You can donate to the solidarity fund using the paypal button below, or become a member of Action for Trans Health here.

Help us to provide access to essential healthcare today.

How do I apply?
The application process is pretty simple. Fill in this short form, giving as much details about your situation as you can. After we have received your application, our administrator will anonymise it and pass it on to our funding panel who decide how to allocate the funds. If you have any questions, please get in touch at info[at]actionfortranshealth[dot]org[dot]uk

Healthcare is a right, not a prize

You wouldnt catch me in a beauty pageant anytime soon, but I don’t knock the women for whom that is a thing they wanna do. But Miss Transgender UK’s first prize of gender confirmation surgery has left me speechless. Jess Bradley writes

A few days ago the Miss Transgender UK facebook page posted an update detailing the first, second, and third prizes for their beauty pageant to be held next week. The first prize is £5000 cash and a £10,000 worth of gender affirmation surgery, the second prize is £1000 cash and one facial feminisation procedure. The third prize is £500 cash and a makeover.

We started Action for Trans Health because we saw so many of our friends having to crowdfunds their transitions. We noticed it always seemed to be the prettiest, the whitest, the most middle class people who achieved their goals the quickest. We set up Action for Trans Health to do things differently. We believe that access to hormones, surgeries and other transition related treatments are basic, necessary, and life-saving. They are not prizes akin to a cruise or an open-top car. Making them prizes just makes our basic healthcare needs seem like luxuries: cosmetic and elective.

Our solidarity fund is overseen by a democratically elected committee who employ an independent funding panel to allocate funds according to who needs it most. This beauty pageant seems to be allocating funds according to who is the prettiest (read: most cis-normative looking?). I cant help but imagine how devastating and dysphoria-inducing it must be to get your hopes up of winning the “prize” to have them dashed because a bunch of strangers judged you to not be attractive enough. A whole bunch of people are desperate for access to trans healthcare, and I don’t blame anyone for entering such a pageant for those reasons, or indeed any other really. But I can’t support the idea of basic healthcare being a “prize” for those seen as most attractive in the service of a profit making venture such as Miss Transgender UK.

Our solidarity fund is just one part of what we do at Action for Trans Health, because we know that for all trans people to have access to healthcare, we need to campaign against the idea that our healthcare is cosmetic and elective. The campaigning work that we have done has been hard work, taking us from picket lines to Parliament and back again. We need more than spectacles offering healthcare to the few, but to build a movement which demands healthcare for the many. We hope that instead of giving money to Miss Transgender UK, you donate to our solidarity fund below… and instead of joining them at their pageant, you join the movement which fights for democratic trans healthcare today.

Help us to provide access to essential healthcare today.

Help us to provide access to essential healthcare today.