A volunteer-run group is changing the game for trans people’s aftercare post-surgery. QueerCare, based in California and New York is a group run by trans people for trans people. The organization’s care ranges from covering costs of Ubers, to coordinating someone newly out of surgery with a volunteer who can lend their guest room.

While the right for trans people to undergo gender affirming care are under fire, California and New York are amongst the safer states for the community as. It’s worth noting, however, that the cost of healthcare for trans people is staggeringly high nationwide, as bills depend on an individual’s health insurance coverage. According to Forbes, costs of surgeries can range from $3,000 to $25,000, without taking into account the cost of losing work while healing, in addition to still needing to pay bills. Not to mention one in four trans people have lost a job due to discrimination at work.

Reckon spoke with Lee Mariño Clyne (he/they/elle), QueerCare’s co-president, who is based in San Francisco. While he’s only been president since the start of 2023, Clyne wears many hats: he’s also a coordinator, on the communications team and on the finance team. Being in a constant state of flux is the nature of the organization; volunteers come and go, giving what they can at any given moment. It’s a tough job but above all, QueerCare is taking matters into their own hands, providing care for trans people directly for free.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

QueerCare was started by a group of trans people during the COVID-19 pandemic, led by Carmen Cristina Garcia. She is a Latina trans woman, with a career focus of helping her community. Having seen her already marginalized community struggle with securing aftercare for life-saving surgery, she sought to do all she could to make sure fewer obstacles were in the way for LGBTQ people. Although our leadership has moved to a more collaborative and collective structure, our pride in being a trans-led organization for trans people is still running strong.

QueerCare is a nonprofit and it is entirely volunteer run. The leadership is entirely trans people, so we’re very proud of it being run by trans people for trans people. [We] provide entirely free pre and post-op support to trans people so that they have care through their surgery, because getting surgery can be really stressful and expensive. Unfortunately, not everyone has a good support system set up around them where they’re getting their surgery. A lot of people fly into the Bay Area or New York City from other states to go see a specific surgeon, and then they’re just in a completely new place where they maybe don’t have family or friends who could take care of them. QueerCare volunteers are trying to take the place of that community support.

We do provide money, too! We offer two aspects of support, because money is important, and surgery is so expensive. [In addition to financial support], we have volunteer support, which is the network of volunteers that we’ve created. One part of volunteer support [can be] going to someone’s house to help with cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, organizing all their pills, maybe some basic medical things like changing bandages, or urine bags or drains. It’s really flexible. It’s mostly based on what a care recipient needs.

Yes, we do. They apply to volunteer, and members of our board interview them before they’re allowed to be added to the listserv. Something that’s really great is that usually the way that people hear about QueerCare is that they’re friends with someone on the board, or they know trans people who know the trans people on our board. We ask people about their motivation for volunteering, we go over a lot of guidelines around volunteer shifts, we even have strict policies about dating between volunteers and recipients.

That’s a great idea! It’s a struggle; we’re very new—we started in 2021. And it’s been a slow process of figuring out how to do things, and we’re trying to improve all the time.

It’s been so much. But even when legislators aren’t standing up for us when things are really tough, we have each other—we have community. We all [work for this organization] part time, since it’s volunteer only. But [we] do it because it brings [us] a lot of joy and a lot of hope. It’s beautiful and wonderful that we’re there for each other.

Exactly. It can be difficult on so many levels aside from financial complications; there’s all these legal hoops you have to jump through to get surgery. People are put on waitlists, and there’s emotional duress when you’re suddenly off it, and then can’t do the surgery after all. [Post-surgery depression] is also totally a thing that is very under researched. From my own experience, it’s really common to still have gender dysphoria after surgery. A lot of people think it’s just going to go away like surgery is a quick fix, and that’s not the reality most of the time.

Our main goals are in expansion. I have a lot of care recipients lately who’ve been coming from Nebraska or Texas and flying to the Bay Area for surgery. I’ve asked them “How did you even find out about QueerCare? We’re such a small organization!” and they’ll say something like, “Oh, some trans person on Reddit mentioned that I should apply for help with QueerCare for my surgery.” We’re really, really trying to get the word out there more; we want trans people to be aware of how much support and love and care is out there for them if they are in need of it. We’d love to have volunteers in different cities, we’d love for there to be QueerCare across the United States, not just in the Bay Area and New York City.

We always need donations. They go directly to trans people struggling financially to afford the cost of surgery. We always need volunteers—people who are willing to give their time to support other trans people. And we always just want to have help getting the word out. It makes me really sad when I meet someone who’s like, “Oh, I really could have used that for my surgery. I was really going through it, and I had no one there for me.” We’re out here. We exist. Even if you’re not a trans person, just tell other trans people. We never want someone to feel like they’re going through all the costs, complications and everything that can come with a gender journey alone.