Sometimes supporting LGBTQ+ people in crisis is as easy as buying a T-Shirt.
Self-Evident Truths, a portrait series depicting the spectrum of Queer and Trans-identity in the U.S., announced it is donating 100 percent of proceeds from sales of the project’s T-Shirt to support LGBTQ+ people during the outbreak of COVID-19, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives around the world. The crisis has had a particularly devastating impact on LGBTQ+ individuals: Advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign have warned the community is vulnerable to COVID-19 because of high rates of smoking and lung cancer, as well as the prevalence of immunodeficiency’s like HIV, and a report showed LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately likely to have lost work as a result of the crisis.
According to Self-Evident Truths, the campaign’s focus is on “low income Trans, POC, elders and families with children,” who are likely to have some of the greatest need of any members of the LGBTQ+ community. Transgender people, for instance, were already four times more likely to be unemployed than the general population before COVID-19 hit.
The campaign hopes that a “random act of kindness,” such as donations for “food, gas, and other basic necessities,” can help LGBTQ+ survive through an impossible time. “We’re all in this together, and as a community we can hold each other up,” Self-Evident Truths says.
Campaigns like these are proving more essential than ever. For the LGBTQ+ community, accessing help from religious charities, a major source of humanitarian aid in the U.S., or the government becomes fraught when your identity goes against an organization’s beliefs or you don’t qualify for official funds. Here are 25 campaigns you can support to hold up LGBTQ+ people who are struggling to get by during COVID-19.