James Blake, LPN
Founder | Executive Director
Trans Matters Now Services Network
https://www.patreon.com/posts/31177008
10,000 Calls – 10,000 Miles
Recently Kat took their 10,000th call. That’s not a typo yes, ten thousand calls. Kat has been with Trans Lifeline since December 2015. They started their on-boarding and training for the organization at that time, then began taking calls February 2016. Trans Lifeline will be celebrating it’s 5th birthday on November 14, 2019; which as many of you know is Transgender Day of Remembrance.
After volunteering full-time for over 18 months, Kat was hired as the first full-time staff hot-line operator. Kat has dedicated their service to the trans community by helping callers in crisis and those of whom are dealing with suicidality.
This article from HRC highlights the statistics around suicide in the transgender community. The numbers are overwhelming. 42% of the transgender community have attempted suicide at one point in their lives. Compared to 4.6% of the cisgender population. That’s a ridiculously high gap. In order to help close that gap, and bring down those numbers, Trans Lifeline was created as a solution.
Many times family rejection, unemployment, and barriers to safe/affirming housing are the leading causes of suicide among trans people. Meaning, transphobia is the number one cause of trans people taking their own lives. Education, knowledge, and awareness is key to helping bring further solutions for the transgender population.
In order to get to a place of empowerment for us to help not only ourselves, but also others, was a very long trip indeed. As a family, we experienced homelessness for two years and eight months. For nearly three years, we traveled the country, seeking a place that met two criteria:
1) Trans affirming state protections and healthcare
2) Affordable price of living
In those nearly three years, we traveled 10,000 miles from Mississippi, to Colorado, moving onto the Pacific Northwest to attempt to settle in Washington & Oregon. When those locations were all too expensive, despite meeting our first criteria, we were forced to move on to keep looking. In California, I was not able to get decent medical care, or even find a provider willing to prescribe hormones, a treatment I had been on for just over a year when moving there. I was unfortunately off hormones the entire 13 months we were living in California.
After seeing an advertisement for no credit check apartments in Nevada, we made the 8 hour trip from Cali to here. Thankfully, we were re-housed within two days of moving here! Although, we were already working volunteer within the community, we’ve been able to step up our game since being housed again. We now live in a small apartment, which beats the heck out of living in our camper van!
I’ve been working with Trans Empowerment Project, two years as of next month! TEP Has been able to reach 500 clients with services and projects like: inTRANSitions Host Home Program, TEP Assistance Program, TRANSformations, Trans Job Connect, & Trans Mentorship Program. We are constantly seeking new volunteers, host home sponsors, and mentors for our projects.
Since moving to Nevada, we’ve found out just how important community service, direct action, and banding together, really is. We’ve had to reach out to our own network, friends, and community members for things for ourselves too; like help for rent, patching through until payday, recovering our van from impound, getting food between paychecks, etc. We’ve relied on our community, network, and friends, and know that we are all pulling our resources to help one another! That’s what community is all about.
We have to step up for the trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks, because things like:
1) Secure Housing
2) Food Access
3) Employment
4) Support Network
All need to be addressed because of the staggering numbers of transgender people who are suffering without these things, or having difficulties obtaining these things for themselves.
Resources & outreaches like Trans Lifeline, Trans Empowerment Project, among others are creating solutions to these harrowing realities for our siblings.
TMN Services Network 