CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A group of North Carolina physicians, therapists and other medical experts are commemorating its 10th year advocating for the transgender and LGBTQ+ community.

Charlotte Trans Health, formerly known as the Charlotte Transgender Healthcare Group, is celebrating its recent nonprofit status.

What You Need To Know

Charlotte Trans Health organization celebrates 10 years of offering affirming care

Organization says it wants to educate, provide affirming care and dispel misinformation 

Group has grown from its original 13 providers to now more than 70

The group works to further education of transgender health care, discuss cases and provide a growing network of affirming health care providers for the community.

Holly Savoy, a practicing psychologist in Charlotte, ensures patients are welcomed by a wall of rainbow stickers, decals and other items near her desk. 

“Working with trans and gender-diverse individuals and LGBTQ clients really is my passion, because I love helping people be their authentic selves, and I really enjoy the aspects of exploring identity and who we are and getting to know ourselves better,” Savoy said at her office.

Savoy has been privately practicing psychology since 2007 and is one of the founding members of what is now Charlotte Trans Health.

“It was even harder then to, obviously, find affirming providers than it is today,” Savoy said about the group when it was founded 10 years ago.

Originally, it started when she and 12 others met to ensure affirming care would continue as an affirming provider was moving out of town. 

Their meeting created a resource for transgender and other LGBTQ patients to find affirming health care providers.

“We also were there to educate ourselves, to just be better informed and better educated on trans health care. We had some physicians, a surgeon, some mental health providers,” Savoy said.

Now, the original group of 13 has grown to more than 70 active health care providers and about a hundred other members. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became a nonprofit, which Savoy said furthered its mission to provide affirming care.

“We were able to fund our first round of providing some direct care services for trans individuals. So, we were able to fund brief psychotherapy as well as hormone prescription refills,” Savoy said about the access to care program, which she now chairs.

Spectrum News 1 reported on the program when it launched during the pandemic.

In October of 2022, the organization held its first fundraising event, and Savoy said the money raised will be used to fund another round of similar health care services in 2023. 

Across town in another medical office, psychotherapist Jennifer Ratajczak is working both as a board member for Charlotte Trans Health and as a mental health care provider. She said it is not possible to work in this field and with this community without being an advocate.

“To me, getting involved in an interdisciplinary group, that was both going to focus on education, bring in new providers, those kinds of things … was about increasing access to care on a deeper level,” Ratajczak said. 

Savoy, Ratajczak and other board members also attend conferences and seminars on health care issues facing the transgender community, both here in North Carolina and across the country. The two said it is another important part of their mission to educate, while also dispelling misinformation. 

“You know, we definitely have a lot of pushback where people are completely ignorant in not understanding the need of this health care, which is life-saving and not an avoidable topic. I think a lot of people think we can just ignore trans folks and erase them from existence, but they’re here,” Ratajczak said.

In the meantime, both providers said their work and the organization’s work would continue into year 11.

Savoy said the nonprofit’s first wave of direct care services helped about 30 patients with a combination of free or reduced-cost therapy, hormone replacement medication and case work management.

The organization plans to continue the access to care program through future grants, donations and other funding.