Along with her trans-affirmative healthcare projects, Dr. Aqsa Shaikh is the first out transgender person to head a COVID Vaccination center in India, and uses her social media platforms to reduce language inaccessibility and build solidarity within Muslim communities.

One of Dr. Aqsa Shaikh’s initiatives is to make cisgender members of the Muslim community less transphobic by encouraging understanding between cis and transgender Muslim women, to collectively make their voices stronger.

“As queer persons we also face oppression from the Muslim community, which itself is facing opression from the majority community,” Dr. Shaikh said. “I think it's very important, you know, to build these bridges of allyship between the two oppressed communities.

Dr. Shaikh’s not-for-profit organization, Human Solidarity Foundation, can be seen as one of these bridge-building projects: it focuses hunger eradication by distributing 10,000 food kits annually, and health equity through vaccine awarness campaigns in Urdu and Hindi to reach Muslim women.

HSF started as an initiative to provide medical care and rehabilitation for survivors of the Northeast Delhi 2020 riots, and shortly after, worked to secure food and housing for migrant workers when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

In the past few months, the organization has grown to offer subsidized consultations, sanitary napkins, smartphones for students from low income families, and mental health support through its CoHope Helpline of psychiatrists, psychologists, and peer counselors, for people who need mental health support.

“I always say that if there is something not there, and you want it, you have to create it,” Dr. Shaikh said, reflecting on the CoHope Helpline.

Coming up in the next parts: LGBTQI+ Mental Health; A Note to Mainstream Media.