“A Fresh Start”, The University of Kent launches Gender Affirmation Fund

By Megan Gelson

The University of Kent has become the  most recent University to launch the ground-breaking Gender Affirmation Fund, following the lead of other Universities’ such as the University of Edinburgh , University of Essex and the University of the College of London. 

The support, which launched on Monday 10th October 2022, aims to support students with the cost of buying gender affirming items such as chest binders, stand to pee devices and even clothing.

The Fund is available to students who identify as transgender, non-binary or gender neutral. To be eligible for the fund, applicants must be a registered student enrolled on any University of Kent academic programme. 

This investment is increasingly important, especially amidst the cost of living crisis, making it harder for students to be able to afford to pay for gender affirming items like chest-binders- never mind their groceries-  which significantly impacts their wellbeing and mental health. 

Shortly after launching the fund on Monday 10th October, the University of Kent’s application portal closed temporarily after becoming overwhelmed by an unprecedented amount of applications. 

“This fund is badly needed because we live in a world where trans resources are often very expensive and therefore inaccessible, this opens a lot of doorways for many trans people to be able to access life changing resources”, Freddie Anderson (they/he), a second year drama student said.

“University is often the first safe space many trans people can find when moving away from unaccepting homes.

“This service allows those trans people to be fully able to access the resources they need now that they’re in a physically safe space. As well as this, university is a space where many trans people would like to have a fresh start, and no longer have to be known as their birth gender- being able to afford these resources via the Gender Affirmation fund will allow them to have this fresh start.”

Anderson admitted that in the future, he hopes that the fund has a wider impact on the university, wishing that the services could potentially be available beyond university, so that ‘any trans people, not just students, could access these vital resources’.

“I also hope that the prioritisation of these resources, which are often dismissed as not being a necessity, will increase public understanding around how impactful having access to gender affirmation resources could be.”