While working in academia, Jacob Barry quickly realized that much of the research they were working on around trans communities was inaccessible to the very people it studied. The language used in journals was obscure, and much of the work was hidden behind paywalls. But the research itself was full of important takeaways that could benefit trans people.
In 2019, Barry founded TransCare+ — a Kingston-based non-profit designed to put the trans community at the centre of research. But when COVID-19 hit, the mission shifted: TransCare+ focused on grassroots organizing, providing everything from health information to food-delivery services for vulnerable trans communities.
Now in its fifth year, TransCare+ has evolved into a go-to resource for trans Canadians, offering everything from directories for trans-affirmative health-care providers to online courses about testosterone.
I chatted with Barry, founder and co-executive director of TransCare+, about how the organization has changed and why it’s such a crucial resource.
Erica Lenti: What was your experience in academia, specifically with research into trans communities?
Jacob Barry: At the time [in 2019], I was doing trans-health-related research, and I got really tired of reading things about trans people that I didn’t understand. There’s a lot of knowledge out there with regard to trans health specifically. But a lot of that knowledge is incredibly inaccessible to the people that it actually impacts — both in terms of the language being used and institutional barriers, like existing in a journal that you need to pay for. As someone who is trans and was studying trans health care, I could see these substantial barriers.
There’s a lot of research around poor health outcomes or social determinants of health, but we rarely see the mobilization of that research into tangible, actionable outcomes for our communities to better the circumstances.
So the idea for TransCare+ started because we wanted to do community-centred research, lean into our communities’ knowledge, and centre our communities to conduct their own research on their own terms.
Lenti: The organization changed focus quickly during the pandemic and grew instead to provide online resources to trans folks across the country. How did you and your team approach this new direction?
Barry: The web is, of course, filled with endless information, and it can be wonderful but also overwhelming. What we really wanted to do was build a centralized knowledge hub.
We had to pay attention to how our communities communicate with each other. It raised the same issue that we were having at the beginning of this organization: we know that the most privileged folks are going to be the people who are able to access information. So we had to think about where the most marginalized folks within our communities were communicating — and it’s not going to be in an academic article.
We started with consultations. We’re a team made up entirely of 2SLGBTQI+ folks, mainly Two-Spirit and trans and gender-diverse folk, and we have our own lived experiences. But we wanted to understand what kind of knowledge people wanted, rather than making assumptions. So we took a very broad approach: We asked folks about how they typically go about finding knowledge, what kind of information they were looking for. We went into deep Reddit dives, because our communities talk on Reddit all the time. We did community town halls. And then we did the deep dive of the internet to figure out what our communities were saying about the knowledge that they were looking for — and the difficulties that they had finding it.
From there, we built out the different components of the website to try to make it as streamlined and accessible as possible. There are 1,500 resources on there at the moment and 600 or so [trans-affirming] care providers.
Jacob Barry (Calvin Campos Media)
Lenti: The website gives trans folks the autonomy to learn about their health on their own terms, on their own timeline. Was that part of your vision?
Barry: One of the main principles that we went into this project with was informed consent. What that means for our communities is to understand what options they have available to them and what the risks and benefits might be. If we think about gender-affirming care as an example, we go into appointments, we’re read a bunch of information, and then we’re told to consent. But how informed are we actually of those decisions?
The intentionality behind the site being something where people can choose their own journey was really about trying to provide as much clear, accessible information to folks as possible so that they could make more informed choices about their care, whatever that looks like. That can be gender-affirming care, sexual reproductive care, or even wanting to go get a tattoo. These are all forms of care that we engage in every single day.
Lenti: You mentioned that a majority of the TransCare+ team is trans or gender diverse. How important was it to you to have an organization that prioritizes intercommunity dialogue?
Barry: From the get-go, we knew the organization was going to be by our communities, for our communities. But we also had to keep in mind that even if we have an organization that's completely made up of trans and gender-diverse folks, those experiences are only their experiences. We’re only experts of our own lived experiences. And as a national organization, we wanted to have national representation among our volunteers, our board, and our staff, so we have someone in every province and territory in one of those positions.
Lenti: This resource exists at the same time that we’re seeing threats to trans health care and trans rights in provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick. How are you and your team thinking about these political obstacles?
Barry: We launched the website just before Policy 713 [was being changed to limit trans rights in schools] in New Brunswick, so it felt very timely and significant within the larger socio-political climate. We’ve definitely seen an increase in folks reaching out to identify how important our resources were for them. A lot of parents are reaching out as well.
As a resource, our site is going to exist regardless of the political atmosphere, and we will continue to get creative about the information that’s on there. If, say, health care becomes increasingly inaccessible for our communities, then we go back to Reddit, we go back to our communities, we continue to consult to figure out what people need. What are the ways that we can break down the burdens and barriers that our communities experience? We didn't want this resource to just be something static that existed on the internet. We want to actively update it. We see it as a living document.
The times are scary, but our communities are incredible. And I'm reminded of that every single day. As a resource, TransCare+ feels timely, but it also feels like a really great moment for us to come together. We can look at how many resources there are, how many care providers there are available for trans folks right now. If we can think of this as coalition-building, there’s hope for a liberated future.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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