In every country with available data, trans populations are among the most at-risk groups for HIV. In all regions, trans populations experience high levels of structural and societal stigma, discrimination and violence that hinder the availability and access to health services, including those related to HIV (UNAIDS, 2021). Despite this, trans populations are frequently not included in national data-collection efforts or are not recognized by national governments as priority populations in their HIV responses. As a result, meaningful inclusion of trans people in National Strategic Plans (NSPs) is rare and this exclusion continues to contribute to poor HIV-related health outcomes within this population and leads to comparatively low levels of trans-specific funding and programming.
Donors are increasingly prioritizing funding for interventions that are included in NSPs, so justifying the inclusion of priorities not aligned with NSPs is burdensome and challenging. As such, where it has been accomplished, the inclusion of trans populations in NSPs has helped to increase both domestic and international funding for trans communities. In collaboration with amfAR, GATE developed a series of resources designed to assist with addressing the exclusion of trans and gender diverse communities from HIV National Strategic Planning processes.
The online open-access HIV National Strategic Planning for Trans Inclusion course is designed to train trans and gender diverse activists to engage effectively with governments on NSPs. To supplement this training, two guides were developed: Best Practice Guide for Governments and Best Practice Guide for Trans Activists. Supplementally, an open-access research paper titled Assessing inclusion of trans people in HIV National Strategic Plans: A Review of 60 High HIV Prevalence Countries was published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) to further understand the extent of meaningful inclusion of trans people in national strategic plans (NSPs) for HIV/AIDS. At the conclusion of the project, a monitoring, evaluation and learning report titled Increasing Trans Inclusion in HIV/AIDS NSP: Learnings from Community Advocacy in Five Countries was published to measure enabling factors to support trans inclusion during the next NSP development cycle.
Join us in calling for better trans inclusion!
@amfarofficial Why should ##trans people be included in the development of ##HIV National Strategic Plans? ##amfAR ##GATEorg ##CureAIDS
♬ Stories 2 – Danilo Stankovic
With thanks to the Elton John AIDS Foundation for funding this work