Important Update Regarding The Queer Trans Project

Dear members of The Queer Trans Project community,

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on our journey so far and reaffirm our commitment to our mission of providing gender-empowering resources to LGBTQ+ individuals all across the world. While we have been able to offer several programs over the past two years, I feel that we may have lost sight of our core mission in our efforts to expand rapidly.

We are incredibly proud of the progress we've made in the last two years through our expanded program offerings. These programs were created to address the diverse needs of our community, including the arts, safety, and mutual aid. We highlighted the exceptional work of five QTBIPOC folks in our 3D virtual reality museum, provided self-defense kits to 20 individuals, and distributed $6,000 in gender-affirming care dollars to Black trans people. However, with limited staff and resources, we've come to realize that we cannot give each program the individualized attention it needs to thrive. Therefore, we have decided to refocus our efforts and energy to better serve our community and remain true to our mission.

After careful consideration, and with bittersweet feelings, we are discontinuing the aforementioned programs. While we are pausing some of our programs at this time, it does not necessarily mean that they are gone forever. We understand that these programs have been invaluable to our community in the past and we are committed to exploring ways to bring them back in the future. However, for the time being, we need to refocus our energy and resources to ensure that our remaining programs are of the highest quality and are reaching as many people as possible.

Moving forward, we will be focusing on our Build-a-Queer-Kits and Gender-Affirming Care Flights programs. Looking back, in 2021, we provided 500+ Build-a-Queer Kits to our community all across the United States. Our most recent launch on March 31st, 2023 (our first of this year), we received nearly 500+ orders alone! That far exceeds our 2021 numbers. 

We believe that these two programs will allow us to maximize the amount of individuals that we can help while staying true to our mission, and providing the greatest quality. We are committed to continuing to improve and refine these programs to better serve our LGBTQ+ community, and we thank you for your ongoing support.

With that being said, below are our future goals for these programs.

• Build-A-Queer program goals:
• Have a continued, rolling availability of items, rather than quarterly restocks.
• Continued donor support, including item donation from small and large LGBTQ and allied businesses
• Expand our reach internationally to the countries where we see the most need based on our data (the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia)
• Gender Affirming Care program goals:
• Expand our reach internationally to the countries where we see the most need based on our data (the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia)
• Increase the number of individuals served per care flight to at least 10-15 people a year

Thank you for your continued support of The Queer Trans Project. We do this for YOU. Together, we can create the change we want to see in the world.

Sincerely,

Cielo Sunsarae

Executive Director and Founder

The Queer Trans Project