Transition saves lives.
Playing someone you are not in front of society and living in a misaligned body is devastating suffering. Moreover, we are persecuted by politicians, clergy, schools, and our own families. The state forces us (even when we are adults) to sue our parents to change our data. For the National Health Fund, we do not exist. To start being ourselves, we have to pay for everything privately. Lack of funds condemns us to suffering, for which the only alternative is often to cease to exist.
This story most often follows the same pattern. A tearful mother of a teenager calls or writes to the Foundation, a teenager who a short time ago was a cheerful, sociable child. But since puberty began, they don't see their peers, they lock themselves in their room, they don't eat, they don't sleep at night, they sleep during the day, they have no strength to go to school, and scars from self-harm appear on their skin. Finally, the child said: Mom, I think I'm trans. What to do now? What to hurry with and what not? How to support? Where to go?
A few months later, this young person is a happy person again. They stop cutting themselves, they go back to school, they want to meet people again. Mom is calm, and often discovers a strength she didn't know she had…
Similar are the stories of people aged 20+, 30+, even 50+, only they usually, though not always, report themselves.
What brings trans people back to life is transition, i.e., social, medical and/or legal gender reassignment - from that determined on the basis of body structure, to the one that our brain feels.
When we talk about transition, most people associate it with genital surgery. And in fact, it is not the first and most important thing in this process. Not every trans person needs it and decides on it. However, almost every transbinary person and some non-binary people need hormone therapy, a change of data in documents, and psychological care for themselves and their family.
Why is hormone therapy so urgent and so important?
Until the seventh week of pregnancy, we are all hormonally female (that's why, for example, we all have nipples, because their buds are formed then). In the seventh week, the fetal brain receives a hormonal bath from the mother's body, which, in short, shapes it for which hormone it will cooperate with in later life. If it happens that this bath is incompatible with the chromosomal - and therefore - genital sex, gonads develop that produce the opposite hormone to the one the brain is shaped for. And that's when we're dealing with transgenderism.
Flooding the brain with the wrong hormone for it causes mental distress manifested by depression, tension, self-aggression.
But such a person does not need antidepressants or sedatives, but hormonal intervention: testosterone blockers and estrogen substitution or vice versa.
Medical support
Medical and psychological support for trans people on the National Health Fund in practice does not function.
Getting to an endocrinologist takes 1.5 years. Signing up for a psychologist - 2 years. For a child psychiatrist - a year. There are simply no sexologists on the National Health Fund. The Polish health care system does not treat gender dysphoria - that is, the suffering felt by a given person due to the mismatch of their gender identity with the sex assigned on the basis of genitals - as a life-threatening condition, which it de facto is.
Functioning in a body that is inconsistent with the spirit and mind is something that cannot be imagined if you have not experienced it.
Starting puberty blockers or testosterone/estrogen substitution is a great relief and improvement in the quality of life of a trans person. This therapy also causes physical changes that make us perceived in public situations according to our actual gender.
For a court case, it is necessary to obtain a series of documents confirming transgenderism, from a sexologist, a psychologist-sexologist, and a psychiatrist. If we come across unfriendly specialists who want to extort money from us, we can wait for opinions in suffering for months or even years. Such people can extort thousands of zlotys.
Our foundation, by taking care of people in the process of transition for several years, has accumulated a huge database of contacts to professionals who want to help, not prey on trans people.
Loneliness and rejection
Dysphoria is not the only problem we face.
Although efforts began several years ago, there is still no law that would regulate the procedure for marking gender in documents. The procedure is based on tradition, i.e., previous case law from the 1990s. This means that people cannot correct their data in an administrative procedure. Even if they are of legal age, they have to sue their parents for incorrectly entering the newborn's sex at the registry office. This is absurd: how could they have known that they were entering the wrong sex? And cruelty: it is most often the parent who is the biggest enemy of a trans child.
According to a 2021 study by the Campaign Against Homophobia and Lambda Warsaw, only 15% of fathers and 20% of mothers accept their trans children.
They are more likely to accept a daughter's relationship with another woman or a son's with another man than the fact that their daughter is de facto a son, or vice versa, or a non-binary person. Transphobia is much stronger than homophobia.
We have to sue our parents even when we are of legal age. And also when the mother and/or father are deprived of parental rights. Or they are dead - then the court appoints a curator in their place. If the parents are cooperative and the court is favorable, the gender recognition case can go smoothly. If not, the costs increase, and the case can drag on for years.
In addition, we face enormous hatred from strangers. Politicians and clergy attack us verbally, and fellow citizens - verbally and physically.
In 2022, there was the largest increase in violence against LGBTQ+ people in 10 years. According to the sources available to us, queerphobia may be responsible for 2/3 to 3/4 of youth suicides in Poland, and most teenage suicides are transgender people.
In Poland, PiS initially attacked refugees, then LGBT+ in general. When this campaign ceased to bring the desired result, and resistance increased, they focused on trans people.
The foundation was created to relieve the Polish state in areas where it neglects transgender people. From the collected funds, we finance visits to psychologists and doctors, thanks to which trans people receive the treatment they need and documents to change their data. We help write lawsuits and obtain documents needed for school or university. We run support groups for young and adult trans and queer people and for their parents, who also need psychological support.
Your individual transition map
FREE help for transgender people, including non-binary people, throughout Poland. The shortest paths, proven specialists, writing lawsuits, applications for name changes, legal assistance.
Help with transition includes:
- financing
- diagnosis/opinion;
- visits to doctors;
- hormonal and psychiatric drugs;
- binders;
- individual counseling and referrals to specialists where it is quick, efficient and to the point;
- preparing applications to the Civil Registry Office for a change of name to a neutral one;
- drafting lawsuits to the court;
- legal assistance in problematic situations;
- help in running fundraisers for operations.
Psychological help includes:
- coming out support for children and parents;
- help in crisis situations (violence, homelessness, unwanted pregnancy);
- financing long-term psychotherapies;
- financing neurodiversity diagnoses for queer people and help in obtaining related benefits.
Financing transition
If you can't afford the expenses related to transition, contact us: pomoc@lambdapolska.org
We help FINANCIALLY in paying for
- diagnostic visits,
- medical opinions,
- laboratory tests,
- medicines,
- binders,
- lawyers,
- facial hair removal,
- preliminary consultations before surgery,
- speech therapy classes for voice feminization/masculinization.
If what you need is not listed here, you can also contact us. There is always a way to help.
Transgenderism is not a disease, but dysphoria requires treatment, which should be - and in civilized countries is - financed by public health care. The constitution guarantees the right to health, but the Polish state does not fulfill this obligation towards transgender people.
My child is trans
We have guided hundreds of families through the transition process. Contact us at pomoc@lambdapolska.org, we will arrange a meeting (video chat or in person) and explain everything. We will direct you to offices where you will be received quickly and friendly. If necessary, we will pay for visits to specialists, therapy, tests or medications. We can help with conversations with the school, with the rest of the family. With the formalities of changing the name, the court process.
Everything can be diagnosed and settled before the age of 18. You don't have to wait for anything. Not making a decision is also a decision, and its consequences will last a lifetime.
Parents (mainly mothers) of trans children meet to share experiences. Such meetings give a lot of energy and hope that your child will be healthy and happy, and your family will live in peace and love again.
If you are able to get to Szczecin,
support group for parents of trans and queer people:
- 2nd or 3rd Sunday of the month, at 12:00 PM,
- ul. Rayskiego 25/2, Szczecin
Information about the date of each meeting is provided on our social media.
If you are from another region, contact us and we will direct you to groups in your area.
You will also get support at: