Issue Brief: HIV and Transgender Communities | Policy and Law | HIV/AIDS

Delivering High-Impact Prevention

Transgender people are a priority for CDC’s core HIV prevention funding programs, including funding to state and local health departments and community-based organizations (CBOs). CDC is providing 36 CBOs with focused funding of nearly $14 million per year over five years to support HIV testing, linkage to care, and prevention services for transgender youth of color and young gay and bisexual men of color. CDC also funds a national network of capacity-building providers that help health departments and CBOs provide culturally relevant programs, services, and interventions for transgender people.

A new pilot program will fund CBOs to develop community-to-clinic health models to provide access to integrated status-neutral HIV prevention and care services, gender-affirming services that include access to OR referral to hormone therapy, and primary health care. The funding opportunity also supports linking transgender persons to services as needed for mental health and substance use disorder and other essential support services. These three elements working together will provide a supportive foundation that will lead to an increase by transgender persons to access HIV prevention and treatment services, decrease HIV transmission, and improve their overall health and wellbeing.

Through the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative, CDC supports efforts to advance health equity and overcome barriers to HIV prevention and treatment in the 57 areas of the country hardest hit by HIV. The initiative requires funded recipients to actively engage people with and affected by HIV in the design and implementation of localized HIV prevention activities. This effort includes the use or expansion of innovative community-tailored HIV testing and care strategies for transgender people.

CDC’s Together-TakeMeHome self-testing pilot program is an internet-based program that successfully provided 100,000 free HIV test kits to anyone who requested one, with a focus on reaching Black and Latina transgender women, among other groups. Among transgender persons who ordered test kits, 24% of transgender women and 30% of transgender men reported never being tested for HIV.

Finally, as part of its Transforming Health resource, CDC offers educational materials for healthcare and social service providers to help them improve care for transgender people with HIV and make clinical environments more welcoming to transgender patients.