Diverse Xpress, a Subscription Box Startup for Trans People

Statistics and figures around transgender, gender-diverse, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people can be hard to face: with so much misunderstanding and misdeeds against the community, it can be hard to figure out where to begin to eradicate the problem. The global launch of Diverse Xpress doesn’t claim to have all the answers—but it does claim to be a trans & non-binary aid to an entrenched societal ill.

Even as there are official inquiries into trans & gender diverse deaths, there is little hope in the LGBTQIA youth community around daily necessities like binders (used to decrease or flatten bust areas) and bras. These simple items can not only help trans people feel much more at home in their own bodies and avoid gender dysphoria, but these items can help to decrease safety issues on the street or from acquaintances.

The people who have the least access to these necessary items, which can include anything from stand-to-pees (which are devices which allow persons to pee unobscured by questions about their standing or seated position), are LGBTQIA youth. Youth have little means to come by these items, and oftentimes little support at home.

In fact, out of over 250 transgender and gender diverse youth, over 80% reported severely needing support.

The funding model behind this startup project is much the same as TOMS shoes: buy one box, give one box. For each sponsor for this project, there will be a youth benefitting equally.

Diverse Xpress aims to be a subscription box service around not only providing these necessities (on a quarterly basis) to sponsors, but also to the youth they aim to help.

Potential box listings:

Box List #1

– 4+ pride trinkets, customized to the recipient’s identity: including keychains, tattoos, stickers, pins, and pronoun pins.
– 3 panties or gaffs, in the recipient’s size
– 1 binder or 2 bras or 2 clothing items, in the recipient’s size and binary or lack of binary
– national and local resources
– and, for Youth boxes: a Letter of Encouragement

and another potential box:

Box List #2:
– 4+ pride trinkets, customized to the recipient’s identity: including keychains, tattoos, stickers, pins, and pronoun pins.
– a toiletry & tool kit in your chosen binary or lack of binary
– a stand to pee or makeup
– 1 clothing item in the recipient’s size and binary or a book
– national and local resources
– and, for Youth boxes: a Letter of Encouragement

Upon its completion on Indiegogo, this project will offer completely customized subscription packages to transgender, gender-diverse, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people and then offer the same services to youth in an attempt to pull together as a community, and make a societal ill easier to bear. “As an agender person,” explains Beck Swanson, “I want to see less dysphoria in youth who were in my shoes—I want them to know people out there are rooting for them.”

This specifically describes why every youth box contains a Letter of Encouragement, which may be able to sway negative mindsets.

Find out more about the project visit their Indiegogo page or the Diversexpress website.

Tags: featured, gender fluid, non-binary, Transgender

Category: Transgender Community News