The SoCo GAMA (Gender-Affirming Medication Access) Fund was created with a simple but urgent purpose: to remove financial barriers to gender-affirming medication for members of our community.

We launched it in response to what we were hearing every day. People were navigating systems that were confusing, under-resourced, and too often inaccessible when it mattered most. At its core, the fund has always been about access. Access to care. Access to dignity. Access to the ability to live fully and authentically. The fund was launched at a critical time, when access to care was threatened for all, but especially for our trans youth, who faced the reality of losing access entirely to life-saving puberty blockers.

Thanks to partnership with trusted providers in our community and local pharmacies, we were able to do something about it.

From the beginning, we knew this work would need to grow alongside the realities our communities face. And right now, those realities are shifting.

Across the country we are seeing mounting pressure on systems that provide gender-affirming care. Policies change. Providers face new restrictions that threaten their ability to provide any care at all. Coverage becomes uncertain. The result is instability in a space where stability is literally the lifeline some of us need.

So we are choosing to be proactive.

We are evolving the SoCO GAMA (Gender-Affirming Medical Access) Fund to meet this moment, not in reaction to a crisis, but in preparation for one. By expanding the fund to support gender-affirming medical care more broadly, we are building a model that can adapt if and when existing pathways to care are further disrupted. This allows us to lean into partnerships with trusted local clinics and experienced providers, ensuring continuity of care no matter what changes around us.

This is what community care looks like in practice: not waiting until access disappears, but building infrastructure to protect it ahead of time.

Our hope is that the SoCo GAMA fund continues to grow, not just in size, but in its ability to respond to need with flexibility, speed, and compassion. That it becomes a long-term safety net rooted in trust. That when someone in our community needs care, the answer is not “we’ll see what’s possible,” but “we’ve got you.”