Our Vision for a Healthier Future Includes Everyone
Working With Transgender Leaders on a More Equitable Future
We envision a healthier future that includes everyone, regardless of their gender or sexual identity. However LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender and nonbinary people, are currently facing political and legal challenges across the country that act as barriers for them and their families to reach their best health and wellbeing.
For more than 50 years, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has operated under the fundamental belief that everyone in America should have a fair and just opportunity to thrive. We hold on to that belief now more than ever. We all have dreams for ourselves and our families. But we don’t all have the same opportunities to make those dreams come true. For too long, our social practices, laws, and policies have placed more value on some lives than others based on race, class, and other factors. To achieve health equity, we have to uproot this hierarchy of human value to build a future where all communities thrive—a future where health equity is a reality. We believe that, together, we can build a world where health is no longer a privilege, but a right.
As one of the largest funders addressing issues that impact transgender health and wellbeing in the U.S., RWJF is constantly working to integrate a gender-expansive equity lens in programming across its various portfolios. We recognize that structural racism plays out in particularly jarring ways for the trans community and we focus our work on strategic partnerships that elevate the leadership and needs of trans people of color.
Blog Post
Our Commitment to Health Equity Requires Investing in Trans Leadership
To transform health, we’re working with trans-led organizations to create new data, new narratives, and new policies that honor trans people and their families.
Early Insights: A Report of the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey
Funded in part by RWJF, this is the largest-ever survey of the lives and experiences of trans people, with more than 90,000 participants in all 50 states, U.S. territories, and military bases overseas. The survey—along with quotes collected by NCTE as part of their story-collection project—explores the beauty and devastation that can shape the trans experience in America.
RWJF portfolios that are working with trans leaders toward a more equitable future:
Addressing Disparities in Access to Healthcare
Trans people often experience discrimination in accessing healthcare of all types—including outright denial of service—and the trend of increasing political interference with medical and public health guidance that reinforces this discrimination is dangerous for everyone. By funding initiatives focused on dispelling myths about trans health, our partners are working against these disparities in real time, contributing to the creation of a healthcare system and health data systems that are more equitable and accountable. This aligns with the Foundation's commitment to reimagining healthcare systems that prioritize individual and community wellbeing.
Healthy and Equitable Community Conditions
Equitable Data Collection and Community-Led Solutions:
Trans people are often marginalized out of participating in many everyday functions of society and of their broader communities, such as accessing housing and stable jobs. Funding trans leaders of color supports community-led solutions, which are essential for achieving sustainable change. Communities are best positioned to identify their unique challenges and develop targeted interventions. By providing direct support, the Foundation empowers these communities to implement solutions that align with the broader goals of economic inclusion, accountable healthcare, and equitable community conditions.
Economic Inclusion for All Families
Narrative Change for Inclusive Policies for Families:
Historical and structural factors have guided our nation’s policymaking to favor traditional, nuclear family models. Supporting trans leaders of color to reshape narratives around expansive notions of family is necessary for changing conditions, policies, and our overall understanding of what it means to be a family. Narrative change is a powerful tool for influencing policies that can foster greater economic inclusion and systems that work for everyone, not just the few that are truly included in the concept of the “typical” American family. Funding initiatives that center on storytelling and advocacy can create a positive ripple effect, challenging stereotypes and fostering understanding.
Building Policy Infrastructure
We must fund communities building a better future, sometimes starting from the ground up. We are honored to partner with the Black Trans Fund and the Trans Justice Funding Project to help build organizing and policy infrastructure for and by trans people in areas most impacted by anti-trans legislation, looking to ultimately create a thriving, thriving advocacy ecosystems for trans people across the country.
Related Content
The Promise and Peril of Being Transgender in America
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, and Julie Morita, MD, executive vice president at RWJF, outline new data that show how much progress our nation has made—and how much more work is left to do.
Achieving Health Equity
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Health Should Be a Right, Not a Privilege
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