TRANSIT Smart Guide: Adapting TRANSIT for a community-based audience of trans individuals and trans-led organizations

The TRANSIT Smart Guide was developed as a collaborative effort between Innovative Response Globally for Transgender Women and HIV (IRGT) and Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE) to adapt TRANSIT for a community-based audience of trans individuals and trans-led organizations. The Smart Guide follows the same structure as TRANSIT, and is divided into the following topics:

Topic 1: Community Empowerment
Topic 2: Stigma, Discrimination, Violence and Human Rights
Topic 3: Services
Topic 4: Service Delivery Approaches
Topic 5: Programme Management

The content of the Smart Guide highlights content areas in TRANSIT that are of particular interest and importance to the trans community. Excerpts from TRANSIT that are included in this guide include the table and figure references and page numbers to help locate them in the original document.

The goal of this project is to improve understanding and ensure meaningful engagement of transgender persons in Global Fund activities at the national level; strengthen capacity of national transgender organizations and build peer-to-peer knowledge sharing; encourage evidence-based programmatic interventions and policies based on needs of the transgender community; and inform funding transition preserving investments made in strengthening transgender communities.

The project is also intended to focus on strengthening local capacity; especially in support of transgender people in their regional and country-based constituencies to more effectively engage in, and contribute to, the development, implementation and oversight of Global Fund supported programs.

The creation and dissemination of the TRANSIT Smart Guide is a pivotal step in trans community capacity building and empowerment, providing trans people with the knowledge to take ownership of problems that face their community and come up with unique solutions that will hopefully decrease their vulnerability for HIV as well as address structural issues that perpetuate marginalization, stigma, and discrimination. GATE partnered with IRGT in the creation of the Smart Guide and subsequent workshop planning and implementation. Following the creation of the Smart Guide, thirteen trans activists and leaders were invited to Mexico City, Mexico to attend the implementation/dissemination workshop from 25-26 January 2020.

TRANSIT Smart Guide