How to Help Trans People Right Now: Ways to Give That Actually Matter
You've been watching what's happening. You want to do something. Here's exactly what works -- and what your support makes possible.
If you've been following the news, you already know things are bad. Over 500 anti-trans bills were introduced across the United States in 2024 alone. Healthcare bans, forced outing policies, bathroom criminalization, Medicaid defunding. Trans people in dozens of states are navigating an environment that is actively trying to make their lives impossible.
You're here because you want to help. This guide is for you.
Not vague "raise awareness" advice. Not a lecture. Real, specific actions with real price tags and real outcomes attached -- so you can choose how you want to show up and know exactly what your contribution does.
First: Understand What's Actually Happening
Before you decide how to help, it's worth knowing what trans people in the United States are actually facing right now. Not abstractly. Concretely.
Trans people are leaving hostile states in large numbers. Since early 2025, over 360 people have contacted WERQ TOGETHER's Trans Relocation Fund and Aid Network (TRFAN) looking for help getting out. They're coming from Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Florida, Louisiana -- states where healthcare is being restricted or criminalized, where families are facing legal threats for supporting their trans children, where people have been arrested, harassed, and threatened just for existing.
The mental health toll is severe. Trans people experience suicidal ideation at 7 times the rate of the general population. That number isn't a statistic about being trans -- it's a statistic about what happens when a group of people is systematically targeted and stripped of safety, community, and care. When people have safe housing, affirming healthcare, and real community, those numbers shift.
The housing instability is real. Trans people represent a disproportionate share of the unhoused population, particularly trans youth. A 2022 count found 80 trans people unsheltered in Multnomah County alone -- nearly double the number from three years earlier. One in five trans people has experienced housing discrimination. These aren't edge cases. They're what happens when formal systems consistently fail a specific population.
This is the context. You're not donating to a cause. You're backing a community infrastructure that's doing active, measurable work in the middle of a crisis.
What WERQ TOGETHER Does (And What It Costs)
WERQ TOGETHER is a trans-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. We run four core programs:
TRFAN (Trans Relocation Fund & Aid Network) helps trans people move from hostile states to Oregon with peer navigation support, housing connections, employment referrals, and direct financial assistance for moving costs and deposits. We've completed 80+ successful relocations with a 95% housing placement rate -- meaning virtually everyone who moves through our program lands in stable housing, not back on the streets.
Peer Support Services provides certified, trans-led 1:1 peer navigation for people navigating healthcare, housing, crisis, and the general weight of living as a trans person in 2025-2026. We've delivered 40+ peer support hours monthly, with 15+ crisis interventions on record and 100% client satisfaction.
Safe Haven Home Share connects trans people who need housing with community members who have space to share -- building a housing network that doesn't depend on a credit score or rental history.
Know Your Power is a tenant rights curriculum, currently serving trans Oregonians entering housing programs for the first time.
Here's what our work actually costs:
One peer support session ~$25
One relocation consultation ~$30
Moving costs for one person ~$150-300
Security deposit assistance ~$500-800
Full relocation, start to finish ~$350 average
One person's housing for their first 30 days~ $700
These are real numbers. Every $350 we raise represents one more person who gets out of a hostile state and into stable housing. The math is concrete.
And the return on that investment is documented: for every $1 invested in TRFAN, $7.90 in emergency services is prevented -- emergency shelter, ER visits, mental health crisis intervention. Trans people staying in unsafe states don't disappear; they end up in systems that are dramatically more expensive and dramatically less effective. Community-led prevention is cheaper, faster, and better for everyone.
The Most Impactful Thing You Can Do: Become a Monthly Donor
We're going to say this directly because it's true: a monthly recurring gift is worth more to WERQ TOGETHER than a larger one-time donation.
Here's why that matters from a systems perspective. One-time gifts help us respond to immediate needs -- and we're grateful for every one. But monthly donors are what allow us to plan. They're what allows us to say yes to the next relocation request with confidence. They're what keeps peer support available when someone reaches out in crisis at 11pm on a Sunday. They're what lets us hire and pay trans people at living wages for doing this work.
Monthly donors are the infrastructure that makes everything else possible.
Here's what different monthly gift amounts actually do:
$15/month ($180/year) covers peer support sessions for one community member for six months. You're the reason someone has a person in their corner every other week while they navigate a housing search or a healthcare system that wasn't built for them.
$25/month ($300/year) funds all pre-move consultations for one person's entire relocation -- the calls, the planning, the housing research, the employer connections. You're the reason someone knows there's a plan before they step on a plane.
$50/month ($600/year) covers moving costs or partial deposit assistance for one relocation. Combined with the consultations and community support, a $50/month donor is close to fully funding one person's path to safety per year.
$100/month ($1,200/year) funds more than three full relocations annually, including direct financial assistance. At this level, you're not just supporting the program -- you're a named part of the reason specific people are housed.
$250/month ($3,000/year) sustains a peer navigator -- a trans community member who is certified, trained, and paid to do this work. At this level, you're directly creating trans employment while funding trans safety.
Every single monthly donor matters. The person giving $15 and the person giving $250 are both essential to the system. The goal is a community of monthly sustainers who collectively keep this work going regardless of grant cycles, news cycles, or political climates.
Other Ways to Give That Actually Help
Monthly giving isn't the only way in. Here's the full menu.
Give Once
If recurring giving isn't right for you, a one-time gift still moves things. One-time gifts go directly into the TRFAN fund for moving costs, deposit assistance, and emergency needs. Donate at werqt.org/donate -- you can designate your gift to TRFAN if you want it to go specifically to direct client support.
Give Housing
If you have a spare room, a basement apartment, an ADU, or even a couch that could be available for a month or two, you can become a Safe Haven Host. Community housing is one of the biggest gaps in our ability to serve people. The standard rental market with credit checks, deposit requirements, and income verification locks out most of the people we work with.
Being a Safe Haven Host doesn't require you to be a homeowner. It requires a safe, affirming space and a genuine commitment to welcoming a trans person into your home. We do intake with you, help you set expectations, and stay in the loop during any placement.
This is one of the highest-direct-impact things a Portland-area ally can do. No money required.
Give Time
WERQ TOGETHER runs on volunteers. Specifically, we're always looking for people who want to do peer navigation -- showing up for people coming through TRFAN and peer support with 1:1 connection and resource guidance.
Being a peer navigator doesn't require a clinical background. It requires lived experience as a trans or queer person and willingness to be trained. We run trauma-informed training for all volunteers before they're in contact with clients.
We also have practical volunteer needs: transportation for newcomers arriving at the airport, help with moving furniture, resume support, administrative tasks, and event support through Trans Town PDX.
If any of this sounds like you, fill out our intake form at werqt.org.
Give Skills
Are you a licensed professional with skills that trans people need? We have active needs for people with expertise in:
Legal: Name change assistance, immigration law, tenant rights
Finance: Benefits counseling, budget coaching, QuickBooks support for the org
Healthcare navigation: Help clients understand OHP, find providers, appeal coverage denials
Mental health: Peer support certification supervision, group facilitation
Tech and marketing: Website, social media, content creation
Pro bono professional services directly reduce our operating costs and free up financial resources for direct client support. Reach out at eli@werqt.org to talk about what this could look like.
Give Your Platform
If you have an audience -- a newsletter, an Instagram following, a podcast, a workplace Slack channel, a book club -- you can raise money for WERQ TOGETHER without spending a dollar of your own.
Peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the most effective ways to grow our donor base. When someone who trusts you tells their network about us, conversion rates are dramatically higher than cold outreach. A birthday fundraiser on social media, a matching campaign at your workplace, a "give what you'd spend on dinner" ask to your email list -- all of these move real money.
If you want to run a fundraiser for WERQ TOGETHER, email eli@werqt.org and we'll set you up with the tools, language, and metrics you need.
Give as a Business
If you run or work at a business that wants to demonstrate genuine commitment to trans rights, WERQ TOGETHER offers partnership opportunities including event sponsorship, employee giving campaigns, in-kind donation programs, and cause marketing relationships.
We're not interested in logo placement for its own sake. We're interested in partnerships where the business's support is genuine and where we can tell your customers and employees exactly what the money does. Trans-affirming employers benefit from the relationships we build -- we refer clients to employers who demonstrate real commitment, and we amplify partners who show up.
Contact eli@werqt.org to talk about what partnership could look like for your business.
What Happens When You Give: The Loop
Here's something worth understanding about how this kind of work compounds.
When a donor funds a relocation, something specific happens. A trans person gets to Oregon. They find housing, find work, find community. Many of them -- about 15% within six months -- become volunteers, showing up for the next person going through the same process. Of those volunteers, 40% go on to become monthly donors themselves.
Your gift doesn't just help one person. It helps one person become someone who helps the next person. The community funds itself forward.
This is what economists call a social return on investment and what community organizers call a reinforcing loop. When you give to WERQ TOGETHER, you're not buying a service for a client. You're seeding a community that grows its own capacity over time.
That's the theory. Here's what it looks like in practice.
When Jordan arrived in Portland with $300 and a name on a piece of paper, he didn't know anyone. TRFAN connected him to a roommate, a job lead, and a community. Three months later, he was at his first WERQ event, meeting people who'd done what he did. Six months later, he was on calls with people coming from his home state, telling them what he wished he'd known.
That's one story. We have 80 versions of it. Each one represents a donor who said yes at the right moment.
The Honest Ask
WERQ TOGETHER has confirmed grant funding that covers specific programs and deliverables -- peer support hours, tenant rights workshops, sanctuary fund services for immigrants.
What it doesn't fully cover is the flexible, responsive infrastructure that makes TRFAN work at the pace the moment requires. The security deposit for the person who needs to move in two weeks. The flight for the person leaving a dangerous situation. The emergency microgrant that keeps someone housed through a job transition.
That flexibility comes from individual donors. It comes from people who give monthly because they've decided this is a cause worth sustaining, not just a headline worth responding to.
We have 700+ people who have contacted us for help. We can't serve all of them at the speed they need with grant funding alone. We can serve more of them -- faster, more fully, more effectively -- with a growing base of monthly sustainers.
That's the ask. Not because it's a talking point. Because it's the actual mechanism by which more people get help.
What You're Not Doing When You Give
You're not saving trans people. Trans people don't need saving. They're already building community, already helping each other, already doing the work.
What you're doing when you give is removing a financial barrier between trans people and the safety they're already working toward. You're funding the infrastructure that lets peer navigators do their jobs. You're covering the deposit that a trans woman in Kansas can't pay because her savings went to staying alive long enough to find an exit route.
You're not the hero of this story. The trans people coming through TRFAN are. You're the person who made the door possible.
That's a real thing. It matters. And we're grateful for every person who shows up to do it.
Start Here
Give monthly: werqt.org/donate -- choose "Monthly" and pick an amount that's sustainable for you. Seriously, $15/month is real. Do it now.
Become a host: tr.ee/safehaven_hosts -- if you have space, tell us.
Volunteer: werqt.org/intake -- fill out our intake form and tell us what you've got to offer.
Fundraise: Email eli@werqt.org to set up a peer-to-peer campaign.
Spread the word: Share this post. Share our Instagram. Tell the people in your life who care about this what we do. Word of mouth is how most of our donors find us.
📣 Become a Monthly Donor
The work is happening. The need is real. The math is simple.
$350 relocates one trans person from a hostile state to stable housing in Oregon. That's $350 in direct support for moving costs, deposits, and planning -- backed by peer navigators, housing connections, and a community that doesn't let people fall.
We've done it 90 times. We're ready to do it hundreds more. We just need the fuel.
A monthly gift is the highest-leverage thing you can do right now. It's predictable, it compounds, and it tells us we can say yes to the next person who reaches out.
You asked how to help trans people. This is how.
