I owe everything to the ‘radical lunatics’
I began to feel more connected to my trans identity during my undergraduate internship. That period meant fewer classroom hours, so I didn’t have to be in school as much.
It was the first time in my life that no one could police me as easily for growing my hair past the collar of my hideous male uniform. It was one inch of hair and the start of my gender arc.
When I was studying psychology and looking for clinical internship programs, it was important to me that they honored my transness. Back then, that was hard to find. It still is. Trans-affirming clinics have always been few and far between. That was until I searched for 'trans clinic Manila' online and found the first community-led transgender health center in the Philippines. The clinic welcomed me as an intern, but also as a trans person in need of healing.
Being there felt like finally breathing. I had never been around so many trans folks at once, in a space where all of us were held in love. It was where I began to find the words for who I was becoming, and the support to live it, all while sweating through the Pasay heat in a tight dress, cakey foundation, and a smoky eye. At noon, no less.
The clinic that changed my life was made possible in part by international aid. For many of us, it was the only way we could access even the most basic trans-affirming care. Today, it’s under threat. So is the liberatory work that sustains it and the ongoing resistance of trans communities and grassroots organizers fighting to build freer futures.
Spaces built for transgender people often carry a certain precarity. This mirrors the broader vulnerability of aid-dependent programs, which were always fragile by design, and are now being shaken yet again. The collapse of global social funding resulted in diminishing resources for rights-based work, the strategic deprioritization of marginalized populations, and shifting geopolitical influences on aid agendas.
In January, Donald Trump froze the US Agency for International Development’s foreign funding assistance. My feed became a digital funeral. Post after post read like obituaries. “Operations suspended.” “Funding withdrawn.” It was like seeing that distinctly Filipino candlelit image resurface on Facebook whenever someone passed. It was everywhere. But this time, the mourning was for what kept us alive.
I couldn’t make promises to myself, my communities, colleagues, or those asking, “Will we survive?” I wasn’t hopeful enough to say yes. I wasn’t sure then. I’m still unsure now. But I do know a few things.
First, a core tactic of anti-rights actors is to promote the illusion of scarcity. They frame trans and gender diverse programs as “non-essential,” justifying defunding them. And yes, within many donor-funded organizations, financial austerity feels very real. But what is often omitted from these narratives is that the funding hasn’t vanished. It has just been strategically redirected into militarization, investing in genocidal violence, and financing anti-gender campaigns.
Second, part of their agenda also follows capitalist and colonial rationalities. Fascists and other anti-rights actors want us to adopt an “us vs. them” binary. Their scarcity framing compels our communities into a survivalist mindset, where access to resources becomes a zero-sum game. Under such conditions, we are pitted against one another and reproduce horizontal hostility. Even feminist spaces have become violent and trans exclusionary. This is intentional because they are threatened by the power of our solidarity.
We cannot afford to be distracted or misaligned within our movements. Gender is not a siloed issue because it intersects with many other struggles. That’s why it must be integrated across climate justice, humanitarian responses to displacement and conflict, digital rights, and struggles for bodily autonomy. Centering trans feminist values in funding is how we reorganize power and move beyond oppressive systems to build true economic justice.
I believe that even if access to aid becomes more difficult, we will continue. Our survival was never owed to institutions.
Lastly, I also know that the people I’ve met through aid-supported programs, whether I accessed their services or worked alongside them, are driven first and foremost by care, not funding. The doctors and nurses who helped affirm my gender, my co-workers who fight every day for human rights, are not bound to me by contracts or donor cycles. They show up because they care. Because we care. Even when the systems crumble, we will remain for each other. Always.
We see this through the work of Trans Health Philippines. Even after suspending their free gender-affirming hormone therapy consultations earlier this year, they never stopped their advocacy. Against the odds, they led the way for the passage of the first-ever transgender-inclusive health policy in the country.
A significant part of my transfeminine becoming was possible through systems of aid. It was through them that I found my life-givers, friends, and communities. It was where I was radicalized to fight for what I believe in.
In reimagining the future of trans movements, I believe that even if access to aid becomes more difficult, we will continue. Our survival was never owed to institutions. It has always been owed to each other. We've built worlds together long before systems did, and we will keep doing so now.
