Transgender Medical Clinic in Mississippi

Our company's mission is to provide gender affirming care to the transgender community in Mississippi. One of the many barriers to us doing this is the cost of medical care. The vast majority of patients are either uninsured or their insurance doesn't cover gender care services. Another barrier is poverty itself: more than 75% of our patients live below the poverty line. 

Prior to our clinic, there was no specialty service for transgender medicine in the state of Mississippi. Patients had to seek care outside of this state or go without. So we created a clinic with a program designed to solve the issue of the lack of transgender specialty care. Statistically, it is estimated that there are approximately 15,000 transgender identified citizens in the state of Mississippi. And while not all transgender people choose to transition with hormone therapy, a great deal of them do. 

What we have done is taken insurance out of the medical care equation by creating a membership system wherein patients pay $70 at the time that they sign up for their first appointment, and then they pay $35 per month after that to cover the cost of their visits with us throughout the year. In this way, they do not have to fight with their insurance company, and they can even seek reimbursement through their insurance provider if it actually does cover these type of services. This also decreases our overhead costs since we do not spend time chasing down insurance claims. 

To be quite honest, this clinic was not founded as a means to get rich. It was created because there is a dire need in the state of Mississippi for this type of care. As a nurse at heart, I saw an issue with access to care, saw people suffering from its lack, and I recognized my own ability to resolve it. The clinic is currently able to survive on its own, providing enough income to pay employees and cover the rest of its expenses while having enough left over to stash away for future growth. What we would like to do at this point is establish a grant for transgender individuals who are at a financial disadvantage. The grant system would be able to help cover their hormone therapy expenses for specified periods of time, with cap limits on how much each individual could receive in a calendar year. Someone who already has the world set against them should not have to suffer losing access to gender affirming care because they are fired or kicked out of housing just for being themselves. We want to change their stories to a happily ever after rather than a never gonna happen. Priority will be given to trans feminine individuals and people of color. 

Myself and my husband are the healthcare providers for the clinic. We also have an office tech who does most of our computer data entry as well as a group of trans volunteers who assist us when we need to make clinic decisions that will impact our patient population. Our team is small, but it is family.

Thank you so much for the time taken in reading about our situation. This is not about us, but rather about helping to bolster a vulnerable minority community in a part of the country not known for its kindness towards them.