MARSHAS TEA ROOM INC
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Mission Statement
Marsha's Tea Room is a trans led LGBTQIA+ nonprofit organization centered on promoting the overall health and well-being of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People. We are located within the same building space as Spectrum: The Other Clinic, which specializes in hormone therapy for the Mississippi TGNC community. We are meant to be a safe space for members of the LGBTQ community and allies to socialize and provide education to the community. Our main objective is to promote the overall health and welfare of the transgender community.
About This Cause
Marsha's Tea Room is a charity founded and majority funded by the nurse practitioner owners of Spectrum: The Other Clinic, which is Mississippi's first and only clinic that specializes in transgender medicine. Upon the creation of the clinic, the owners discovered that the patient population they served were in need of far more than just basic healthcare, which prompted the founding of Marsha's Tea Room. The charity was given this name in honor of the late Marsha P. Johnson, who was a larger than life figure in the fight for LGBT rights through the 80's and 90's. The charitable purpose and acts of Marsha's Tea Room are fairly broad in scope as the needs of the transgender community often exceed the limits of normal expectations. Transgender people suffer from worse outcomes of almost any measure: homelessness, joblessness, poverty, education discrimination, violence, suicide, mental health issues, sexual assault, and lack of healthcare access. At every turn in life, they seem to have yet another wall thrown up against their success. Our organization tries to focus on a three prong broad reaching approach: healthcare access and education, advocacy for transgender rights, and providing a safe space utilized for resources and education. We do branch out into other areas as the needs arise, and we collaborate with other local and regional nonprofit organizations in order to spread the impact of our assistance even further. In the recent past, we have participated in collaborative events, educations, and planning with such organizations as Planned Parenthood, the AIDS Coalition, Mississippi Rising, Open Arms Clinic, The Spectrum Center, Haven House, and many others. We also seek partnerships with LGBT affirming organizations to provide distribution of donated goods to those in financial need. An example of this is our recent partnering with the chest binder company GC2B who markets chest binders for transgender men. They graciously provide us with their products to redistribute amongst transgender men in financial need who cannot afford their own binder. For many of these people, this was the first time they have ever been able to possess one. And we will continue to seek out these partnerships in order to continue to procure these much needed basic garment items for these very deserving people. Our most recent project that we are developing involves mental healthcare, which once again sees transgender people falling behind the general population in regards to access. We have composed a list of gender affirming mental health professionals who are trained and willing to treat this minority patient population. The next step is to find ways of funding the patients to be able to participate in therapy. The average therapy session can cost around $150 depending on the type of therapy and type of professional being seen. Typical effective therapy takes place at least once per week for one hour over several weeks to months. As one can see, this results in a severely steep price tag, which these patients simply cannot afford given all of the other odds already stacked against them. Our hope is to build a fund that will help us streamline patient to provider referrals and payments so as to provide those transgender individuals who demonstrate financial need with fully funded, or at least reduced cost, therapy sessions with trained professionals who will guide them through their mental health issues. Because without one's mental health in check, no forward life progress is ever effectively made.