Meet the Florida nonprofit sending hundreds of transgender Ohioans gender-affirming supply kits

This story originally appeared on The Buckeye Flame.When Cielo Sunsarae and Alexis Williams launched The Queer Trans Project in 2021, other LGBTQ+ people looking for help and resources often thought the Florida-based nonprofit was fake.The group provides gender-affirming supply kits and travel assistance to transgender and non-binary people across the country – including more than 500 Ohioans in the last year alone.“Trans people thought we were a scam and that we were going to take the information and harm them,” Williams said. “It was a huge barrier to reaching the world.”Williams and Sunsarae have bridged that gap by appearing as themselves on social media, explaining The Queer Trans Project and allowing themselves to be visible as an LGBTQ+ couple.Over the last five years, Williams said inquiries have exploded.In 2026, Ohioans visited The Queer Trans Project’s website more than 20,000 times and received more than 580 customized gender-affirming “Build-a-Queer” kits worth a total of nearly $30,000 in supplies and materials.But Williams said that fear still lingers – especially among LGBTQ+ Ohioans, who are facing restricted access to gender-affirming medical care and threats to their medical privacy across the state.“With all institutional shifts and the closing of institutions, there is the lack of gender-affirming care.” Williams said. “We’re getting huge inquiries. We’re getting a lot of pings in Ohio.”‘They wanted to help other people’It is more difficult than ever before for transgender Americans to access gender-affirming healthcare – including prescriptions for hormone replacement therapies (HRT).Williams and Sunsarae founded The Queer Trans Project to help fill that gap with fewer barriers by offering services at no cost, with no age restriction and no geographic requirement.To date, the nonprofit has distributed more than $1 million worth of gender-affirming resources to trans and non-binary people living in all 50 stat