Trans-owned company offers affirming products

By ZACHARY JARRELL

When Scout Rose was transitioning in 2003, it was nearly impossible to find the tools they needed. They remember combing through message boards and digging to find transition-related products that yielded mixed results. The trans community, they said, was an “afterthought” or a “side project” at best.

“While things have certainly improved in the almost 20 years since I began my transition, by and large, the needs of transmasculine and nonbinary folks were not being addressed,” Rose told the Los Angeles Blade.

So, Rose took matters into their own hands and started Transguy Supply, an online marketplace dedicated to supporting trans men and nonbinary people. The site offers everything from binders and packing gear to apparel and grooming supplies.

The amount of people who identify as transgender has grown generation by generation, according to a 2022 Gallup poll. In fact, trans Gen Zers – born between 1997 and 2012 –more than double the percentage of trans millennials, 2.1% to 1%. Additionally, about 42,000 children and teens across the country received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in 2021, nearly triple the number in 2017, according to Komodo Health Inc. data compiled for Reuters.

As the need grows, so has the availability of transition-related products. But, Transguy Supply’s Chief Marketing and Community Officer Rocco Kayiatos said, when you look at companies for trans people “built by folks that are outside of the trans community, they don’t understand the economic reality of trans people.” how “pervasive discrimination,” “a lack of legal protections” and the “failure to adequately protect transgender students” contribute to the economic gap.

“That economic reality is stark against the rest of humankind, in that the majority of trans folks don’t have jobs and those that do are making well below poverty line levels,” he added.

“I think one thing that Scout and Auston [Bjorkman, Transguy Supply’s creative director] did really beautifully – it’s embedded in the fabric of how they run this business – is to ensure that we are a lower cost option for the majority of the products that we offer to reflect the exact population that we’re serving,” Kayiatos, who joined the business late last year, said.

Take a $75 prosthetic, Kayiatos used as an example. “Seventy-five bucks is the choice between eating or not eating,” he said. Transguy Supply prices most of its prosthetics, also known as packers – a realistic or semi-realistic penis, usually made of silicone, meant to make trans men and gender nonconforming people more comfortable and confident – well below $75.

“It started with the need,” they said.

When they launched the business four years ago, Rose –who has worked in the trans and nonbinary communities for almost two decades – knew it would be a success. “Seeing firsthand both the size and the power of the community, I was fairly confident that the community would support a business whose primary focus was the community,” they said.

And, so far, it seems as if they were right. According to the company, it has seen between 200% and 400% yearly growth since launching in 2018 – a feat Transguy Supply attributes to the “absolute need” of the products it offers. The online marketplace said as the trans and nonbinary community grows, their needs can no longer be written off as “niche.”

“I believed that the community was large enough to be able to create a business that could support itself,” Rose said. Still, they added that they have been “blown away by how large the community is.”

“It’s been incredible,” Rose said.

It’s true. According to a 2019 study by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ legal and policy think tank, 29.4% of trans people live in poverty – tied with cisgender bisexual women for the highest rate in the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ people, as a whole, have a poverty rate of 21.6%, according to the report, much higher than the rate for cisgender straight people, 15.7%.

In addition, researchers at Vanderbilt University found that trans Americans are 14% less likely to have completed college and 14% more likely to live in poverty. Even after controlling for the lack of a college degree and other observable differences, researchers said, trans people are still 11% less likely to have jobs than cisgender men in comparable situations.

“Economists call this an unexplained gap, but it’s likely that discrimination plays a role,” said Kitt Carpenter, who co-authored the study, “Transgender Status, Gender Identity, and Socioeconomic Outcomes,” published in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review.

The Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project, in a 2015 report, said, “Transgender Americans face clear financial penalties simply because they are transgender.” In the report, the two nonprofits detailed

In many ways, Transguy Supply provides a version of gender-affirming care. “It’s life-saving and life-changing and life-affirming,” Kayiatos said.

Though some states have made strides in protecting trans people, the political landscape for trans people – especially trans youth – has largely gotten worse in recent years. In the first weeks of 2023, the ACLU has already counted over 120 new anti-LGBTQ bills across the country, most of which target education and trans healthcare. And that’s not to mention the record-breaking number of anti-LGBTQ bills seen in years past.

“These bills represented a coordinated effort to deny transgender people our freedom, our safety, and our dignity,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

One major target of this legislation has been banning trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care – anything from puberty blockers to hormone therapies to surgeries, a rare intervention for minors. In 2023, though, the legislative efforts have leveled up, with some bills now targeting adults as old as 26.

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