ABOVE: Genderbands’ pride pins, photo via Genderbands’ Facebook page.
PROVO, Utah (AP) | A project that started as a way for one transgender person to pay for gender-confirmation surgery has grown into a Utah-based nonprofit helping others who can’t afford the procedure.
The Daily Herald reports that Ian Giles founded the organization Genderbands, which provides free chest binders and awards grants to help with surgery.
Giles uses they and them pronouns, and started selling wristbands in 2015 as a way to pay for their own double mastectomy.
Giles then turned Genderbands into a nonprofit to help others get surgery too. The organization now sells shirts, flags and pronoun pins around the world to medical offices, universities and corporations like Amazon and Spotify.
The organization has awarded grants for six surgeries and plans to fund four in its next application cycle.
