For trans and gender diverse people, a shift in policy and mandatory access to trans-affirming health care can decrease a flagging 45% suicidal rate confronted by its community. But the state’s snail pace to lunge a 25-year waiting list for gender-affirming surgeries and prudish medical aid schemes, excluding this care from the minimum prescribed benefits lists, could mask intolerance and discrimination.

Grantees from the International Women’s Media Foundation and the SABC news, will over the next three days, narrate the daily realities of trans and gender diverse persons, waiting for the state to change laws and systems that are inclusive of their existence.

In this first episode, participants share lived experiences about what being trans means to them and shed insight on how being trans is perceived by family and the community. This series has been produced by Reginald Witbooi from the SABC, Sellwane Khalane and Saif Arbee who are freelance journalists