You Matter and We’re Here to Help

Harbor Health Initiative is a program through Community Uplift Program with the mission of improving healthcare outcomes for LGBTQ+ populations in North Dakota by developing resources, connecting the community to affirming providers, and making the transition process accessible.

Resource Navigation
We offer help navigating LGBTQ+ resources across North Dakota. If you need help in finding an affirming provider, understanding what services are offered, locating support groups, or anything within this vein you can email us at Info@harborhealthinitiative.org.

LGBTQ+ Directory
Our LGBTQ+ Directory is a searchable list of health providers, therapists, and community support groups for individuals to find the best affirming providers in our state.

Transition Resources and Help
We maintain a wealth of resources to help trans people navigate all they need to know for transitioning. We also have many resources that aren’t specifically about LGBTQ+ folks, but might be more important for LGBTQ+ demographics such as suicide prevention resources, places that provide financial support, and where people can exercise their legal rights. These can be found exploring our menu on the top right of our website.

Are You or Someone You Know Struggling with Mental Health?

Important – 988 connects to our local suicide prevention call center FirstLink. While you can call if you’re in a crisis, you can call if you’re worried about a friend and want to get help on how to approach the situation. Nonconsensual welfare checks are the last thing these call operators want and account for less than 5% of crisis calls. FirstLink is well trained and staffed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ people.

• 24/7 Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 – call or text.

• Queer Youth: Trevor Project Suicide Hotline: 1-866-488-7386
• Queer Youth: Trevor Project Text Support: Text “START” to 678-678

• Trans: Trans LifeLine (877) 565-8860

• Queer Elder: Call 877-360-LGBT (5428)

• Non-Emergency/Support: Firstlink Help Line: Dail 2-1-1
• Non-Emergency/Support: Firstlink Text Support: Text “Zip Code” to 898-211

The History of the Harbor Health Initiative

In 2018, we opened Harbor Health Clinic to address the gap in healthcare that transgender individuals experience. The Main areas of focus for this clinic were to increase access to hormone therapy by using both an informed consent model and providing a sliding fee scale payment option for lower-income trans folks. When we opened our doors, we were the only clinic in 150 miles providing either informed consent or sliding fee scale services. We provided this service between 2018 and 2020, treating over 200 transgender individuals in the tri-state area.

The global pandemic of 2020, however, stopped our ability to continue hosting this clinic. As we struggled to find ways to continue offering this service, we looked around into where our efforts would be the most beneficial.

Since our opening in 2018, we’ve had a number of other healthcare organizations start to provide both informed consent treatment and sliding fee scale opportunities. The goals we set out to accomplish with our clinic were starting to be met by the healthcare community at large. Given the instability caused by the pandemic and our original goals being met, we determined our efforts would be better suited to working with healthcare organizations across North Dakota to improve the infrastructure that already exists. In this regard, we set out to encourage more providers to start offering hormone therapy as part of standard care, for pediatricians to start screening for gender identity, and for all doctors to be better trained in LGBTQ+ Cultural Competency.

The Harbor Health Initiative is an initiative to dramatically improve cultural competency and offered services throughout the state.