Surveying the Transgender Scene
DC Trans Coalition carrying out needs assessment for transgender D.C. residents
Corado says the questions in the needs-assessment survey were based on a series of community roundtables with 108 transgender individuals who targeted certain issues of importance to members of the community. Working with the Williams Institute, a national think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on sexual-orientation and gender-identity law and public policy; and American University, DCTC was able to incorporate the issues raised in the discussion groups and design the survey so that it would capture the information the group was seeking, Corado says.
Because the project is such a large undertaking, DCTC is going to train members of the transgender community to input survey findings into a database. Edelman expects it will take about a year to get any quantifiable results from the surveys.
Edelman says the biggest challenge is finding funding to carry out the project, since both those who take the survey and those who administer it are paid for their assistance. Through a combination of small donations, fundraisers and some larger donations from prominent individuals, including some City Council members, DCTC has been able to gather enough money to pay for 300 surveys, about 60 percent of the group’s minimum target.
Edelman says that once the results are available, they can be used to shape policy or lobby for more resources, because activists will be able to cite specific data from the needs assessment. Once the survey results have been analyzed, the group hopes to work with government actors to create a task force to implement needed changes highlighted by the survey, which could include actions like restoring funding to organizations that cater to the transgender community, such Transgender Health Empowerment, which have suffered from cuts to social programs made during the recent recession.
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