3.69, respectively).215 The environment in which transgender sex workers operate,
including the clients they encounter and the use of drugs and stimulants, means greater
attention should be paid to the health risks they face.
Programming Response
For this report, we also interviewed organizations with programming for transgender
communities. However, their programming was primarily as part of general HIV-related
health interventions. There were limited services offered for other pressing needs of
the transgender community, including mental health or psychological counseling,
transitioning support (especially on hormone use) or dealing with discrimination,
including in access to healthcare.
The interviews with the nine civil society organizations working with transgender
communities in China highlighted some general findings. The organizations all cater to
the transgender community, but mainly transgender women, the majority of whom are
sex workers and some of whom perform in shows in bars. The large majority of these
transgender women have not undergone SRS, but a considerable number have had
breast implants. Only two organizations cater to transgender men, and the number of
such people covered is very small.
Only one organization had a stand-alone project,
“MSM organizations
managed by transgender volunteers, which provided
do not fully understand
psychological support and information for people on
the needs of the
gender affirming surgeries. Six of the organizations
transgender community,
provided services to the transgender community
and transgender
through their MSM work, and two provided services
organizations need
for transgender sex workers under their projects
to be established
for sex workers in general. Two of the organizations
to promote change
launched special transgender projects in 2010 but,
for their own living
after the projects ended and the funding was spent,
conditions.”
they did not organize further stand-alone projects. One
of the organizations had established a transgender
group backed by its project at the time, but the group
had no source of funding or organizational capacity so, at present, it is still a group of
volunteers dependent on the umbrella organization for its survival.
215 MSM and Recreational drug use, Results of an online survey. http://www.anovahealth.co.za/images/uploads/MSM_Recreational_Drug_Use_in_SA_
Jobson.pdf (accessed October 15, 2014).
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