Transgender people who don’t have easy access to makeup products will now receive help from the Syracuse University Trans Team.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, students from SU’s David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics’ Department of Marriage and Family Therapy will hold a makeup drive in Schine Student Center to help members of the transgender community in central New York.

Meghan Harris and Nicole Binnie, both graduate students majoring in marriage and family therapy, are organizing the event. The pair is looking for new and unopened makeup products that include mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, foundation, blush, lip gloss and lipstick.

Harris and Binnie are members of the Trans Team, an organization within SU’s Couple and Family Therapy Center that helps provide therapy for transgender people and their families. Binnie said she and Harris were inspired to organize the makeup drive after therapy sessions with their transgender clients.

“A lot of my female transgender clients said they didn’t have access to makeup or know how to put it on,” Binnie said.

Although the Trans Team organizes an annual clothing drive, Harris and Binnie said they recognized a need for makeup products because many of their transgender clients do not buy makeup on their own.

Harris and Binnie said they plan to use the donated products to hold makeup workshops for the transgender communities in central New York.

During the workshops, Harris said she wants to bring in makeup artists that can teach transgender women how to apply makeup. Many transgender women, especially in the Syracuse community, feel that they have to fit in to a specific aesthetic, she added.

“We want the female trans community to know that they don’t have to look like Laverne Cox or fit into a cookie-cutter image,” Binnie said.

Harris said many of her clients lack a safe space to learn how to apply makeup comfortably. Some do not feel comfortable walking into a store and buying makeup, she added.

“I hear a lot of discrimination stories,” Harris said. “Trans females have a lot of additional barriers because it’s a little bit more obvious that they are transgender.”

As members of the Trans Team, Harris and Binnie work with members of the transgender community to help transgender people through the medical gender transition. In addition to serving the transgender community in Syracuse, Harris said many of her clients travel to SU’s Couple and Therapy Center from as far as Rome and Utica.

Support for the transgender community in central New York is lacking, Binnie added.

Binnie said many of her clients come to the center to seek help beyond therapy. In addition to counseling, Harris and Binnie said they help their clients receive hormones and surgery to aide in their transition.

“It’s unfortunate that for many of our clients, we are the only place they feel comfortable asking for help,” Binnie said.

Harris and Binnie said they hope the makeup drive will help raise awareness for the local transgender community.

“We’re trying to fill a void for a community that’s often overlooked in central New York,” Binnie said.

Published on November 30, 2016 at 11:59 pm

Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18