As the Trump administration continues to push policies targeting transgender people, some people are seeking to counteract these measures — with their pocketbooks.

Nonprofit groups supporting transgender people say donations have increased in the wake of the news that the Trump administration plans to federally redefine gender as a binary of either male or female based on a person’s genitalia. In the runup to Transgender Awareness Week starting Nov. 12 to raise awareness of the transgender community through education and advocacy activities, they said such a move could negatively impact more than 1 million transgender people and non-binary people (those who do not identify as male or female) in the U.S.

This is the latest policy from the current administration affecting transgender people: In 2017 President Trump said he would ban transgender people from serving in the military. The ban is currently being fought in court after current and prospective transgender members of the military sued to block it. Also in the Fall of 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced transgender people would no longer be protected from workplace discrimination.

“ ‘Historically, many LGBT nonprofits have only focused on the most powerful in our community. This is why it’s critical to instead support organizations led by and for the trans community.’ ” — —Eli Erlick, director at the Trans Student Educational Resources

Eli Erlick, director at the Trans Student Educational Resources, a nonprofit resource for trans youth run by transgender volunteers and employees across the U.S., said the organization has seen an “unprecedented” number of donations this week, including many people buying buttons and stickers to publicly show support for trans people.

Because the organization is run by trans people for trans people, it can better serve the needs of the community than some larger national LGBTQ organizations, Erlick said.

“It’s crucial to make sure we are supporting organizations that support us back,” she wrote in an email. “Historically, many LGBT nonprofits have only focused on the most powerful in our community (wealthy white cisgender gays and lesbians). This is why it’s critical to instead support organizations led by and for the trans community.”

Donations one transgender group more than doubled

With new policy proposals aimed at the trans community, Trans Lifeline, an Oakland, Calif.-based non-profit, has also seen renewed financial support from trans people and their allies — and soaring demand for its services, deputy executive director Elena Rose Vera said.

In the last month, the volume of calls to the organization’s crisis hot line quadrupled and the number of new callers doubled.

“ In the 24 hours following the release of The New York Times report on the proposed policy last Sunday, daily donations to Trans Lifeline doubled. ”

New federal policies like the one the Trump administration is proposing can make trans people feel isolated and under attack, Vera said, and even provoke mental health crises. “It has been a hard time for the community — under this administration we have been targeted over and over when we are essentially just trying to live our lives,” she said. “As a service that fills the gaps for people in this country, we watch demand move directly in response measures like this.”

In the 24 hours following the release of The New York Times report on the proposed policy last Sunday, daily donations to Trans Lifeline increased by 50 times. These funds will be used to pay for transgender people who staff the hot line, answering calls from people in crisis, as well as “micro grants” to help trans people with financial needs. These needs include name changes on passports and other legal documents needed for things like travel, which cost an average of $200 to $500, Vera said.

“This cost is pocket change for some people but for a community with poverty like ours, it is a life-changing amount of money,” she said.

Transgender people face a number of unique financial hurdles, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality: one in four transgender people say they have lost a job due to discrimination, according to a 2011 study, and 97% of transgender people have been mistreated at work in some way. Trans people are four times more likely to report living in extreme poverty than the general population, extreme poverty defined as making less than $10,000 per year, it found.

Removing existing protections for transgender people could exacerbate these issues by removing legal recourse for transgender people who experience discrimination in work and housing situations, Vera said.

“Financially, this would have an enormous impact because all protections we have for employmentt, housing, and healthcare access are dependent on measures that protect us legally as a class,” she said. Vera sees the latest proposal as a clear message from members of the current administration. “They consider us a problem,” she added.

People used social media to raise money for trans causes

After seeing The New York Times report Sunday, Emma Roller, a freelance writer based in Chicago, tweeted TWTR, +6.08% that she would match donations up to $500 to the National Center for Transgender Equality, a transgender advocacy nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

She said she had never publicly fundraised for such issues in the past, but she found the report particularly jarring.

“I am trying to walk the walk of being an ally,” Roller, who is cisgender, meaning she identifies as the same gender she was assigned at birth, said. “It is a way to feel a little less hopeless in the face of everything that is happening. Social media can be a mixed bag, but it does help foster these networks of support among people and that has been a boon for fundraising in small dollar amounts.”

In less than three hours, Roller’s followers donated $500, which she matched.

In addition to donating to specific organizations, other people have donated to and solicited funds for trans people directly. Katelyn Burns, a federal policy reporter based in Washington, D.C., drew attention to trans people who are seeking financial help on her Twitter account on Monday, calling it “a tangible, immediate way to support trans people right now.”

Many health insurers don’t cover transgender health care

Transgender people are seeking financial help for medical costs, including gender confirmation surgery, also referred to as sex reassignment surgery, and breast reduction or “top surgery,” or egg freezing for trans men who want to freeze their eggs before medically transitioning so they can have biological children someday.

Not all transgender people choose to undergo sex reassignment surgery, but for those who do, it can cost $100,000 to $150,000. Many insurance plans do not cover health care for trans people.

Until 2014, Medicare excluded gender transition-related care, including hormones, from coverage. Advocates worry such procedures will return to being out-of-pocket expenses under the Trump administration.

Other donations to trans people cover costs for paperwork including changing a gender marker on state identification. Some cover simple day-to-day costs like rent or school tuition.

“It’s important to provide funding to trans-led organizations because there are only a few organizations that are actually making moves to help the transgender community,” said Ezra Morales, membership director at Trans Student Educational Resources. “It’s extremely expensive for trans individuals to acquire basic necessities for living along with proper gender-affirming care.”