India’s devastating surge of COVID-19 has claimed more than a quarter million lives. Experts believe that already-grim official counts — nearly 400,000 cases and 4,000 deaths daily — are far higher than reported. A confluence of factors, including government mismanagement, strained infrastructure, endemic disparities, and a fast-mutating virus have contributed to the spiraling crisis, which author and essayist Arundhati Roy has called a crime against humanity.
The country’s LGBTQ+ population, and particularly trans people, have been especially vulnerable to the pandemic and its fallout. As in the U.S., trans people in India are more likely to face housing and food insecurity, engage in survival sex work, and lack identification required to obtain government assistance. The HIV infection rate among India’s transgender community is 26 times higher compared to the national population. On top of the havoc wreaked by COVID-19, many queer and trans people face steep struggles with regards to basic needs, even in the best of times.
The full extent of India’s present suffering — deadly shortages of oxygen, hospital beds, and lifesaving treatments; mass funeral pyres burning nightly — are difficult and overwhelming to grasp. Even as aid has begun to arrive from foreign governments, India’s need is vast and progress difficult to measure. But mutual aid groups and individuals on the ground and abroad are working tirelessly to help. On social media, open source lists of aid groups accepting foreign donations have circulated in recent weeks.
A number of organizations all across India are working specifically to reach queer and trans people in need. Below are grassroots fundraisers currently accepting donations.
Trans activist Grace Banu is raising funds to support more than 500 trans people living on the outskirts of villages in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. Donations will go toward emergency ration supplies, medical kits, and rent for the next three months.
Organized by U.S.-based organization Parivar Bay Area, this fundraiser is working with organizations operating in 26 locations in 8 different states of India, including in Kashmir. Donations will help fund the distribution of food kits and preventive medical supplies like sanitizer, masks, and vitamins.
Sangama is a human rights organization that supports sexual minorities, sex workers, and people living with HIV. Funds raised through this campaign will provide nutritional support for more than 1000 recipients each month, across 10 districts of the southern state of Karnataka.
People for Change, based in the eastern state of Jharkhand, is a youth-focused organization that’s been working to support the region’s trans population since the pandemic’s start. Donations will fund four months worth of ration kits for more than 400 households.
Two local organizations, Spread Love and Peace (SLAP) and Xomonnoy are teaming up to support LGBTQ+ people in the northeastern state of Assam. Funds will go toward the distribution of menstrual health kits and mental health services as well as food and medical supplies.
Youth Feed India and Helping Hands Charitable Trust are working with other grassroots organizations to provide rations for 150,000 people in Mumbai, India’s largest city. Recipients include transgender people, sex workers, and those living with HIV.
For ongoing updates of fundraisers supporting India’s LGBTQ+ population through the Covid-19 crisis, visit Pink List India.
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