Direct Financial and Material Support

1a. Set up a BuyNothing-style Discord group.

This would be a space where students could ask for things that they need and/or offer to gift things that they no longer need. This could be anything from clothes, furniture, a ride to the airport, a post-surgery meal train and/or recovery items, etc. This would create a stronger community based on shared resources. 

1b. Create and promote a list of internal and external scholarships and grants.

Include both general scholarships and grants as well as those available specifically to trans and non-binary students. Start with highlighting your college’s own Scholarships and Grants pages, and then expand beyond that. Some LGBTQIA2+-focused scholarships and grants include:

There are also scholarships and grants available specifically to assist trans folks financial access to gender-affirming surgeries! Here are a few:

1c. Create and promote a list of college, local, state, and national resources that support LGBTQ+ people.

Here are some examples of how those can structured:

Consider a page dedicated to trans and non-binary student support, like Onondaga Community College in Central New York and Connecticut State Community College does!

You may also include non-trans-specific resources as well, such as California’s Low Cost Auto Insurance, CalFresh, and Market Match, if the trans and non-binary students on your campus would particularly benefit from it!

Check out EverywhereIsQueer.com for a worldwide map of LGBTQ+ businesses and organizations. It’s not 100% comprehensive (truly, can anything be?), but you may even discover someplace new for yourself!

LGBTQ+ career resources are also a great thing to include, as Camden County College has done!

2. Work with the Foundation or Associated Students to fundraise for scholarships, grants, and/or emergency funding.

These are especially helpful for students whose legal guardians CAN pay for their college tuition, but WON’T pay due to not accepting that student. These students are left in a weird financial aid limbo – still considered a legal dependent without financial or other ties to their legal guardians, but not easily able to become legally independent either. 

These will also be helpful for students who are forced out of their homes due to unsupportive family, cannot afford the added costs related to legal name and/or gender marker changes, or cannot afford the added costs of surgery including but not limited to travel, lodging, food costs, and recovery supplies.

Work with your campus financial aid office to see about using the “professional judgement” process to adjust students’ cost of attendance so that any emergency funding does not impact students’ ability to receive future financial aid.

There are pros and cons to Endowed Scholarships, so be sure to talk with your college about their policies and procedures around Endowments.

MiraCosta College – Endowed Student Scholarships

  • GSA Club Scholarship ($1,000): $25,000 endowed in the spring of 2014 by the Gender Sexuality Alliance Club
  • Joe Maak & Pride Resource Partners LLC Scholarship ($1,000): Endowed in the fall of 2016
  • Trans* Pride Scholarship: Endowed in the spring of 2017, first of its kind in the world
  • Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC) Scholarship: Endowed in June 2019, during the same week as the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots

(MiraCosta College)

Though not a California Community College, Central Oregon University can also be used to inspire, with both an LGBTQ+ Scholarship and an LGBTQ+ Emergency Fund. The scholarship can be applied for along with other campus scholarships, and the emergency fund page has the application embedded in its webpage for easy access.

Some Funding Opportunities to Get You Started!

Campus Pride Social Justice Mini-Grants for Activism
CTA LGBTQ+ Safety in Schools Grant

Other potential funders include Arcus Foundation, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, California Endowment, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Ford Foundation, and Pride Foundation.

3. Advocate for revised federal policies.

Work with your Financial Aid team to advocate for revised federal policies regarding independent status for students who are no longer in contact with their legal guardians or who have been financially cut off from their legal guardians.

Relevant Research

Trans people experience twice the rate of unemployment and are 4x more likely to live on less than $10,000 annually compared to cisgender people in the United States (Grant et al., 2011). 

Among trans students who did not persist in college, 26% of them reported financial barriers through loss of financial aid or transition-related financial needs (Grant et al., 2011). 

The Opportunity to Strengthen Basic Needs Supports for California’s Post-Secondary Students through Partnership and Shared Accountability: Recommendations from the Intersegmental Working Group on Student Basic Needs (2022)Download