Access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care improves quality of life for all people, yet cisgender and transgender women and girls alike around the world face myriad challenges when it comes to getting this necessary care.
Contraception, protection from sexually transmitted infections, maternity care, safe abortion care, counseling, and self-care tools empower women to have active and positive sexual lives, free from physical or psychological suffering. But stigma and fears among communities at large, friends and families, and even women themselves can cast a negative light creating barriers to women’s well-being.
Unmarried women, teen girls, sex workers, women who are part of the LGBTQI+ community or those already living with a stigmatized condition can be especially excluded from information, care, and support.
In recent years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has tackled these challenges in a variety of ways. Projects in Greece, Honduras, and Zimbabwe have shown that strengthening a woman’s agency and offering community support can enable positive engagement with women’s sexual and reproductive health needs in ways that reverberate throughout the social fabric.
In each of these countries, women, girls, men, parents, and neighbors have compelling stories to share as they participate in and drive this change.
Supporting transgender women seeking asylum
Persecution and discrimination continue to force people to seek asylum far from home, as is the case for a small community of transgender women who have, over time, fled Cuba via Russia for the safety of Greece. Although the women are safer now, they still struggle to access health care in their new locations.
“Most of the trans people who came here do not have any medication,” said Yuli, an advocate for her community. “They experience sexually transmitted diseases—that is life. But it is very difficult to find the medical support.”
