What We Provide

We provide direct, monetary grants to trans and gender-diverse people in Westman to cover the costs of a legal name/gender change in Manitoba. These grants can cover the costs involved in:

• Applying for name/gender changes to the Manitoba Vital Statistics Branch.
• Issuing new birth/marriage certificates.
• Fingerprinting required as part of a legal name change.
• Updating Manitoba driver's licenses or Manitoba ID Cards.
• Updating Canadian permanent resident cards.

To ensure you can meet all the requirements for your legal name/gender change, we also have a Commissioner for Oaths who can certify your Legal Change of Name and Change of Sex Designation applications to the Manitoba Vital Statistics Branch.

For those born outside of Manitoba, we do not currently provide funding for name/gender changes in other provinces, states, countries or jurisdictions.

Requirements

We will require applicants to meet the following criteria. All criteria are based on self-identification:

• You currently reside within the Westman region of Manitoba.
• You are trans and/or gender-diverse (transgender, non-binary, two-spirit, genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, or any other non-cisgender identity).
• You must be eligible for a legal name and/or gender change (whichever you are applying for) in the province of Manitoba. We do not currently provide funding for name/gender changes in provinces, states, countries or jurisdictions outside of Manitoba.
• You cannot afford to pay out of pocket for the aspects of your name/gender change that you are applying for.
• You are not eligible for name/gender change funding from Manitoba Employment and Income Assistance. (If you are, please contact your case worker for more details.)
• You must be able to receive payments via Interac e-Transfer, as this is how we disburse funds to our beneficiaries.

Selection

This program selects its beneficiaries using a lottery system. For our October 2024 intake, we will select one beneficiary in total to receive the full amount they requested.

If you are not selected as part of this intake and are still in need of funding, you will need to apply again to the next intake when it opens.

If you are selected as part of this intake, you will have one month from the closing date of the intake to respond and make an appointment with our Commissioner for Oaths to certify your applications to the Manitoba Vital Statistics Branch.

Apply

Please be sure you have carefully read the details above before you apply. If you have any questions about the Name/Gender Change Grants program, please send us a message on Facebook or Instagram, or email us at [email protected].