‘Changing lives': Black Trans Travel Fund pushes forward amid Trump's anti-trans attacks

The Guardian

a day ago

When Tabytha Gonzalez's brother died earlier this year, her Black transgender community rallied around her to 'take care of what I needed to get through this process of grief', she said. The mutual aid collective Black Trans Travel Fund provided her with $250 to buy an outfit, pay for a car service from New York City to New Jersey for the funeral and to purchase food while she was there. 'I was able to get what I needed to get there, I was able to have water, I was able to buy things; my basic needs were met in that moment,' Gonzalez said. 'Funerals are expensive. It helped me … show up in a way that was respectful.'
Founded in 2019, Black Trans Travel Fund began as a ride program for Black trans people in New York and New Jersey to pay for car services such as Lyft twice a week. It has since expanded to a global funding source for people who need help paying for TSA pre-check, flights, passports and emergencies, with an eye toward self autonomy so that trans people have a say in how they spend the money. Safe transportation is of particular importance to the Black trans community, since they're at increased risk for harassment and violence when cycling, walking or using public transit. At least 32 trans and gender nonconforming people were killed in 2024, with 56% of them being Black trans women, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
But Black Trans Travel Fund is strapped for resources since individual donations have declined in recent months due to fear around the Trump administration's policies targeting trans people, said the group's founder and co-director Devin Michael Lowe. 'With the political climate that we're in, the cost of food is skyrocketing, housing costs have skyrocketed,' Lowe told the Guardian. 'And there's been so much backlash against trans people all across the country.'
Over the past year, the group has had to adjust its programs in the face of an increasingly anti-trans political climate. Following Trump's executive order that only two sexes, male and female, would be recognized by the government, several transgender people told Lowe that the US Department of State confiscated their passports when they tried to renew them. So in February, the group paused its sponsorship of passports and plane tickets to avoid putting trans people in further danger.
Following a June preliminary injunction on the Trump administration's policy requiring that a person's passport reflect their sex assigned at birth, though, the organization recently began sponsoring passports again for trans women in the US. And due to the US's cuts to foreign aid and development assistance, the group has focused much of its efforts on helping Black trans women in other nations, including Uganda, seek safety.
'People have had some really serious concerns about their capacity to travel lately,' Lowe said. Trans women who need to travel for work 'have concerns about facing harassment at the airport, or not getting their documents'. Lowe said that for transgender people preparing to travel, their 'mental health is being impacted deeply. People are stressed out about what are going to be the continued effects.'
Trump's recent executive orders targeting trans people, 'really has us in a whirlwind', Lowe said. 'And I think that is one of the tactics. Fascism makes it difficult for you to do anything. They want us to be overwhelmed by the amount of things that are happening at once, and it feels undefeatable.'
Launched by Lowe, a Black trans man in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City, the Black Trans Travel Fund was originally created as a way to safely transport Black trans women to and from Pride events six years ago. In May 2019, three Black trans women – Muhlaysia Booker, Claire Legato, and Tamika Washington – were fatally shot in the span of a week. Lowe attended a rally in New York City about the murders affecting his community, in which he said white politicians paid 'lip service' about the need to combat the violence without taking any action. So Lowe decided to take matters into his own hands by soliciting donations through social media, resulting in him raising $20,000 within a few weeks.
'One of the core values of Black Trans Travel Fund is autonomy over what they're doing,' Lowe said. 'I can't tell you the amount of times that a woman has told me her experience of getting assaulted or harassed on the metro. So I wanted to ensure that when people are receiving support, they're able to utilize it in a way that feels safest for them.' According to the Black Trans Travel Fund, the team utilized more than $385,000 over five years to allow hundreds of people to pay for Uber rides, train tickets or gas for their friends' cars through their bi-weekly ride sponsorship program.
The flagship ride program was paused in 2024 due to a loss of funding. But with additional resources, Lowe and his team hope to restart it in the future. Altogether, Lowe said that the organization has donated more than $730,000 to help people around the world with travel, housing and medical costs since its inception. The group recently launched a $500,000 fundraising campaign to increase their mutual aid efforts and to make traveling more accessible for even more Black trans women.
In the face of limited budget cuts and executive orders, the fund has pivoted its focus to providing emergency support to trans women globally, where applicants receive $200 within a couple of days to leave abusive environments, to cover funeral arrangement costs, or to pay for safe transportation to medical appointments.
In recent months, the Black Trans Travel Fund has received emergency requests from people throughout the world who need access to HIV medication due to the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID, a governmental agency that provided foreign aid and development assistance. 'We really do not discriminate to the best of our ability,' Lowe said. 'We have a limited amount of funding each month, so if we do receive an overwhelming number of requests we will try to prioritize the ones that feel the most urgent.'
The organization has also focused its efforts on a grant program to support Black trans-led organizations and shelter spaces domestically and internationally. Over the past year, the group has provided 11 organizations with nearly $16,000. Some of the funding has gone toward rent, food, transportation and hygiene supplies for Black trans people affected by HIV and Aids at Devin's House of Hope, a shelter in Uganda named after Lowe.
In Uganda, where an anti-LGBTQ+ law passed two years ago, trans people are arrested, detained and extorted for money by authorities. The harsh political climate has led to harassment and discrimination on the streets, Lowe said, and it's difficult for trans people to rent housing.
'Even though trans people [in the US] are navigating homelessness and joblessness as well, there are more protections here legally in terms of us at least being able to apply to housing if you have the money,' Lowe said, 'Whereas a lot of folks internationally are getting kicked out for 'homosexual behavior', like neighbors will tell people's landlords.'
The Black Trans Travel Fund helped Ruthra Lubega, a Black trans man from Kampala, Uganda, escape from the nation and seek asylum in New York last year. Lubega met Lowe at a meeting of LGBTQ+ leaders in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2022. At the time, Lubega was homeless, and wanted to create a shelter for trans people living with HIV/Aids. Later that year, the Black Trans Travel Fund raised funds for rent and bedding supplies to launch Devin's House of Hope, where more than 180 trans people from throughout Africa have sought safety. The travel fund has also helped the shelter purchase a car and a motorbike for Lubega to distribute HIV medication and condoms throughout the community.
'During my work and advocacy I used to face many challenges,' Lubega told the Guardian. 'I was in prison many times because of my gender identity. I was beaten many times.' Then last summer, Lubega said that his photo appeared in a Ugandan newspaper's list of 'top human rights defenders that recruit young women to homosexuality'. Lubega's life was at risk due to the anti-LGBTQ+ law, so the Black Trans Travel Fund raised money for him to fly to New York.
Now, Lubega lives in a New York shelter and is trying to attain his green card as he continues to run Devin's House of Hope from afar. Lubega said that ever since he learned of Black Trans Travel Fund, 'they have done a great job of changing the lives of Black trans women and men in Uganda.'
In the face of global trans misogynoir, the Black Trans Travel Fund team also sponsors events for their community to celebrate their lives and experience joy. The group is now raising money to provide trans women with funding for rides following a Black trans women cookout at New York City's Socrates Sculpture Park on 24 August. And at in the fall, they plan to host a fundraising event to raise money for a ball in Kingston, Jamaica, in November.