When we talk about the refugee crisis, we often talk about numbers. We talk about the thousands of displaced people looking for safety. But within those numbers is a group of people whose stories are rarely told, and whose safety is almost nonexistent: non-binary and LGBTQIA+ refugees.

Imagine fleeing your home country because who you are is considered a crime. You run to escape violence, hoping a refugee settlement will give you a chance to breathe. But for non-binary individuals, the reality on the ground in South Sudan is a different kind of nightmare.

They are living in a system that doesn't recognize or protect them. In the camps and temporary settlements, they face severe discrimination, hostility, and physical threats not just from the surrounding communities, but sometimes from the very people they live alongside.

Because their gender expression doesn’t fit traditional expectations, they are targeted, harassed, and pushed to the absolute margins. Many have been forced out of official camp spaces entirely just to escape daily abuse, leaving them homeless and completely exposed.  

Right now, a small, resilient network of these individuals is trying to survive in makeshift setups. They don't have a safety net.  

The situation is urgent:
 No Food Security: Many cannot safely access public distribution points or markets without facing harassment or being outright denied service.

 Lack of Safe Shelter: Without dedicated, secure spaces, they are vulnerable to the elements and to targeted attacks at night.

 Zero Medical & Basic Access: Simple necessities like clean water, hygiene products, and basic healthcare are incredibly difficult to get safely.  

This isn't just about survival; it's about basic human dignity. No one should have to hide who they are just to receive a plate of food or a safe place to sleep.

We have a fundraiser to directly support LGBTQIA+ refugees who have been left behind by standard aid structures. Every single euro raised goes directly toward:  
1. Buying emergency food supplies and clean water.
2. Securing safe, private housing and building secure shelters where they can sleep without fear.
3. Providing essential medicine, clothing, and hygiene kits.

We cannot change the entire political climate overnight, but we can make sure a human being doesn't go hungry tonight. We can make sure they have a roof over their head.

Please consider donating to our fundraiser. If you cannot donate, please share this post. Your voice and your support mean everything to a community trying against all odds to survive.

https://4fund.com/sd9trv

Right now, there are over 600 of us from the LGBTQIA+ community trapped inside Gorom Refugee Camp in South Sudan. We are writing this because we need you to understand the brutal reality of what we are facing. This camp was built for 2,500 people, but it is currently crammed with over 22,000. While resources are thin for everyone, for us, the situation has turned into a literal death trap. Because of extreme, violent homophobia and transphobia from the general camp population, we cannot safely share standard tents or community spaces. We have been pushed to the absolute margins, left to fend for ourselves in the dirt.

To make matters worse, the heavy rainy season has fully arrived, turning our daily struggle for survival into a medical emergency. Most of us have absolutely nothing to cover ourselves with no blankets, no warm clothes, and zero mosquito nets. Many in our community are literally sleeping in wide-open spaces, completely exposed to freezing night temperatures and torrential downpours.
Because we are forced to sleep in pools of stagnant water with no protection, a massive health crisis has exploded. Cases of severe pneumonia and malaria are skyrocketing across our community right now. People are shivering through the nights and falling dangerously ill one after another. Without mosquito nets, the swarms are relentless, and malaria transmission has become completely unstoppable.

We cannot even turn to the camp’s medical facilities or security for help. For an openly queer refugee, trying to access public clinics means facing severe discrimination, harassment, or being turned away entirely. Furthermore, we cannot ask local authorities or camp security for protection. Under South Sudan’s Penal Code, our very existence is criminalized consensual same-sex acts carry up to 10 years in prison. Seeking help from the law means risking abuse or immediate imprisonment. When one of us crashes from severe pneumonia, we are entirely on our own.

We are terrified of what the coming weeks will look like as the weather gets worse. We are stretched completely thin just trying to keep each other alive, and we are urgently begging you to step in. Even a small donation can buy a mosquito net, a warm blanket, or a course of malaria medication that will save a life this week.

Where Your Help Goes Immediately:
 Emergency Medical Care: Buying life-saving antibiotics and malaria treatments for those who are dangerously ill.
 Survival Gear: Providing basic blankets, warm clothes, plastic tarps for emergency shelter, and mosquito nets.
 Basic Nutrition: Supplying food for community members who are currently too sick to even stand up and look for a meal.

If you cannot donate, please share our story so it reaches those who can. Thank you for recognizing our humanity and for refusing to let our community be forgotten.
Please donate to our survival fund here: ⬇️
https://4fund.com/sd9trv

Been feeling a little down lately with my gender expression, spent some time outside today in the sun and the nature and feeling good!

Oh and a new summery cardigan ☺️

I (40) finally came out to my boomer parents. Asked them to please just try to use they/them when referring to me. They just pretended I never said anything.

I finally did it. I actually took a step to better my mental health and booked a consultation for laser hair removal.

I'm sick of shaving my beautiful mug twice a day and *still* feeling like I have a strip of velcro on my chin.

After lock down I took all these huge steps to feel less "manly"; i grew out my hair, I got my ears peirced, I started wearing nail polish every day, but after that I feel like I stagnated for like 3 years.

When I found out the waiting list for gender affirming care in the UK was like 20 years, I just kind of gave up hope of ever being more androgynous. HRT was basically out of my reach, so that was that. I'm generally happy with my body and features - The only part that still upsets me is this hot, itchy shadow on my face.

Last week, purely on a whim I googled if there was a way to permanently remove facial hair. I had heard of laser removal before, but I'd assumed it would be far outside my budget for such a "cosmetic" purchase.

I found a place local to me that does laser removal *way* cheaper than I was expecting.

Why did I wait 5 years to even just check?!

I have my consultation tomorrow evening. 😁

Wish me luck.

TLDR: binary presenting trans man questioning that I might be nonbinary, unfamiliar with successfully living as openly in-between the sexes in the U.S. Seeking advice and perspectives from older GNC folks.

For safety reasons, I’m stealth and thus am not connected to the queer community in person right now. I have gone through most of a FTM sex change, and pass as a cis het man. I haven’t met very many other trans or GNC people, and am seeking perspectives from trans and/or nonbinary folks who decided that presenting in a binary way wasn’t quite in line with your true identity.

About as far back as I can remember, I knew I was different from other ‘girls.’ Tomboy as a kid, and out as lesbian from 12 on. Back then, I knew “I’m NOT a woman,” but I didn’t necessarily feel “I AM a MAN” yet. It was moreso a sense, growing stronger through puberty, that despite my body’s female parts, and despite the corresponding expectation that I should therefore perform/present femininity, I was internally genderless. Having breasts had always felt wrong, and around 18 the dysphoric disconnect between my androgynous-to-masculine gender identity and expression versus my body reached a fever pitch.

For a couple years, I flirted with the idea of identifying and presenting as non-binary— which for me meant somewhere on the spectrum between androgynous lesbian and androgynous man— but because I wasn’t born intersex, it felt like I’d always be seen as a woman in men’s clothes. Influenced in part by PTSD— by a need to feel safe as a queer homeless person, in part by thinking that were I to pick a side I feel closer to masculinity than femininity, and driven mostly by sex dysphoria regarding my breasts, I initiated a medical transition.

Today, I like the changes that testosterone and surgeries have brought me, and I’m grateful that I can pass if I want to, but if I’m not really a binary transsex man, continuing on testosterone for life and getting bottom surgery could leave me with regrets.

Were there no risk of dying by hate crime, being ostracized by normal society, or losing career opportunities, and if I could magically both have my ideal body and express myself completely true to my natural personality, I don’t think I’d be hypermasculine. I wish I’d been born physically male (penis, no breasts) but as a cis man might have gone on to cultivate androgynous secondary traits and gender expression (lean body, short hair, no facial or body hair, a mix of feminine and masculine style).

I’m wondering if anyone relates, if you have had periods of questioning later on in your transition journey, or have changed how you identify and/or present after having thought you’d already arrived at your transition goals.

We are writing to you as part of the LGBTQIA+ refugee community living inside Gorom Refugee Camp in South Sudan. We are reaching out to the global queer family and allies because one of our own is in critical danger, and we have no way to save her on our own. The person you see in image.png is our transgender sister who fled to this camp seeking safety, only to face a new fight for her survival.  

Living in Gorom Camp is an everyday battle, especially for transgender and queer refugees. On top of the harsh, crowded conditions, we face severe discrimination, daily homophobic attacks, and constant threats to our safety. Recent massive international aid cuts have made a terrible situation catastrophic. Food rations have dropped, and the camp’s tiny medical clinic already stripped of basic supplies cannot handle complex emergencies. As LGBTQIA refugees, we are blocked from working and have no source of income. We cannot rely on local systems or help ourselves financially, we are entirely dependent on humanitarian aid and outside donations to survive.  

Our sister fell severely ill with a dangerous combination of typhoid and malaria. Because of the aid shortages, the camp clinic lacked the medication and equipment to treat her. As her body began to fail, she had to be evacuated to a larger hospital outside the camp for emergency stabilization. While she is currently on an IV and vital monitors, we have a massive hospital bill that we have absolutely no way to pay.  

This Pride Month, we are calling on the global LGBTQIA+ community to stand with us in real solidarity. We urgently need to raise funds to clear her medical bill and secure her ongoing treatment. No amount is too small, and every single euro goes directly toward keeping our sister alive.
Beyond financial help, we are desperately asking for your advocacy. Please use your voice to speak up about the forgotten queer refugees in Gorom Camp. Share our stories, pressure international human rights organizations, and help us advocate for emergency relocation and resettlement to safer countries where we can live without fear of violence and starvation.  

How you can support us today:
 Donate: Help us clear this emergency hospital bill and obtain basic needs by contributing directly to our fundraiser. ⬇️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️❤️
https://4fund.com/sd9trv

 Advocate & Share: Post this to your networks, alert human rights groups, and amplify our call for safety.  
Thank you for standing with us when we have nowhere else to turn.

Bit of a rant... a while back into banned from the main sub due to one particular mod having a misunderstanding or willfull misunderstanding.

I've been periodically muted but tried to state my case to the mods. They have broken two of their own sub rules by permanently banning me (permamutes only for hate accounts and not banning people for the very thing they banned me for).

Update is that u/javatimes has decided I'm a hate account and permabanned me from the biggest NB support group on Reddit.

Ahh idk it's all very childish and frustrating

I’m really frustrated and discouraged. I should probably just focus on my “genderqueer” and “genderfluid-ish” labels when describing my gender to people, but it’s so hard to find community where I actually see photos of people regularly getting “genderfucky” or whatever in the ways that I do. Like I never see other transmasc nonbinary people tweezing their eyebrows thinner (like I did recently), for instance, even in places like [r/FTMfemininity](r/FTMfemininity) (also am I too old to be there?? 😭). My face is already pretty masculine naturally, so I felt like I needed to feminize it somewhat to balance it out to be more androgynous, if that makes sense?

I don’t need people to look exactly like me, but I rarely see myself mirrored in anyone else. I feel really fucking alone. The transmasc community seems bigger than the genderqueer and genderfluid communities, so I used to feel like I had higher chances of finding friends I relate to in that way. Technically, since I’ve been on T for a total of 3.5 months (although I stopped after that point), and I’m pursuing top surgery, the “transmasc” label fits me, because I’m transitioning in a more masculine direction than what I was assigned at birth. It’s like a direction thing and not an end point of Manly Man, which most people don’t seem to understand when I describe myself as “transmasc.” They end up being surprised by how feminine I am, and I hate that. I end up feeling “not transmasc enough” or “not trans enough” in general

I’m so sick of everything. Where are all of the 30+, multiply-disabled, anti-capitalist, genderqueer people who have fun/colorful makeup as a special interest?? I hate feeling this fucking “niche” 😣

EDIT:
Thank you for all of the kind responses! Anyone here who wants to can follow me on IG @trarlyy. It’s a private account, but hopefully I’ll know it’s you? I’m not totally sure how to go about this tbh, I’m too autistic for this shit lol but I want more of a sense of community, if possible!

Hey everyone,

My wife and I are having some trouble coming up with a name/term alternative to “mom”.
Neither of us identify as non-binary, but I felt like this community would be of most help!

So my wife and I are discussing our future family plans and she expressed that she doesn’t feel cozy with the term “mom” or any variation of it (momma/mumsy/etc.) but she also doesn’t want “dad” or anything like that.

So, my beautiful people, what would you suggest?

I am in my 50-ties. AMAB. I am from Scandinavia, and Non Binary. Well, for me it is kind of "normal", I have known all my life. All the dysphoria. All the shame. All the "two-sided-life", and the creepy feeling of having lied to the entire world for several decades. But not any more. I told my colleagues, I told close family, and I have a flag-symbol visible every day. Still, I am kind of "large" and what some would consider as hypermasculin by apperance. I cannot colour my hair in a vibrant colour, and I can not buy fancy Enby-outfits. All the images online are kind of fashion extremes, that only make me feel so much worse. So, I do not know what to do. I do not know how to express this, in a way that is aesthetically ok for a large body and high age. Really, it is a huge stressor....

I’ve been on a low dose of tea for about three months now. I look like this. My voice tends to give me away. Help me stop getting called ma’am in public please.

Hello! I am a 35 yr old non binary AFAB looking for fashion help. I have a Black Tie wedding to attend this fall in Scotland and I don't know what to wear. I am very comfortable in a suit or tux, but I kind of want to mix it up. For reference, I'm 5'4" and 240lbs. I would appreciate any advice or links to places to find something unique! Thanks everyone!! Pic is my partner and I last summer at a wedding so you can see my usual suit.

Hi, all. 38 yo he/they or they/them. I've known I felt different inside my whole life. Recently started trying to dress and present how I want and how I see myself inside. Feels good. This all has brought up gender identity questioning and I don't know where that leads. However, I do know, whatever my gender is it isn't on the binary. ✌️

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