Founded in November 2020 as a collective of online communities and an organisation by Tom Kólá, Trans Nigerian Support (TNS) is a trans and Intersex youth-led feminist organisation advocating for the advancement of access to basic human rights for LGBT+ people, currently centring the transition needs of trans people. It was conceived in 2020 through the creation of 2 voluntary membership groups — Share Circle and Super Trans Bros — which focused on community building, education, building awareness and social transition resource distribution. It began formal organising in 2022, first with the collaborative creation of a website for a wider community reach and has since expanded its services and reach.

Trans Nigerian Support is a platform where trans (non-binary and binary) people in Nigeria can come to find information, support, resources, and a community of supportive people who are like them, and share similar experiences. TNS hopes to eradicate the myth that trans people do not exist in Nigeria, and create a safe space where trans people can come to find a reflection of themselves, and their experiences. TNS has not been registered as it is illegal to register LGBTQIA+ organisations in Nigeria.

Vision

TNS envisions a life of dignity, ease and access to gender-affirming resources and healthcare for trans (non-binary and binary) Nigerians.

Mission

TNS’s mission is to improve the lives and lived experiences of trans (non-binary and binary) Nigerians by providing reliable information, support, services, and gender-affirming resources that society often denies trans people access to.

Goals

• Resource distribution, specifically for gender-affirming products of all kinds that aid social transition. e.g. binders, gaffs, prosthetics, etc.
• Building an online repository of information & educational resources via our website and social media.
• Safely making gender-affirming hormone therapy available and bridging the gaps in non-existent trans healthcare by developing a safe telehealth system for people to get what they need. This is done in collaboration with supportive healthcare workers who are trans allies.
• Providing extensive gender-affirming hormone therapy workshops and resources to participants.
• Working to further trans empowerment via employment in leadership and volunteer roles.

More about the reasons for founding TNS, from founder, Tom Kólá

“When I first came out to myself and a few close people as a Trans Man in 2018, almost everything I needed to feel safe and affirm myself in my gender was either non-existent or inaccessible to a young person like me. There was nowhere to get a “respectable”, good quality binder in the country and I absolutely had no hope of starting my medical transition if/when I wanted to. Thankfully, through community building I was able to surround myself with people on a similar mission and we have since been working together to make these
life-changing, life-saving gender-affirming materials available and accessible. The dream is to create
a Nigeria where this lack of life-affirming, gender-affirming resources is a thing of the past. Then we want to expand this to West Africa, Africa and the rest of the globe. We want to live in a world where no Transgender youth has to go through what we went through. This is the dream.

Currently, TNS is embarking on pioneering a system of consistent access to Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy for Transmasculine and Transfeminine Transgender individuals of all genders. This is a service that’s currently non-existent and it puts a major percentage of the population at a disadvantage of safely and consistently accessing their medical transition needs. We have created a system that caters specifically to the healthcare needs of Transgender [non-binary & binary] people despite the current hostility and discrimination prevalent in the country to foster and encourage safe medication use. It is a system that combats the ills and harms of self-medicating for survival and healthcare avoidance for safety.”

Contact

Website
Email: transnigerians@gmail.com / Thetomkola@gmail.com
Instagram
Twitter (X)