Thailand opened its first clinic for transgender people in December.

The Tangerine Community Health Center is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other development groups. It offers psychosocial counseling, hormone administration and pap smears.

U.S. Ambassador Glyn T. Davis attended the clinic's opening in Bangkok.

“The Tangerine Center will provide friendly, needed services to the transgender community locally, while leading the region in identifying and sharing models to improve health care access and quality among transgender people. These efforts will be critical to achieving an end to AIDS, but will also contribute to a much broader agenda to promote the health and rights of transgender people.”

While Thailand is a top destination for sex reassignment surgery, post-operative care and support remain elusive.

“Right now people who are injecting these hormones outside of the clinic, many of them are using hormones that they purchased online or from the black market,” Dr. Nittaya Phanuphak told the AFP. “And that's not something we would like to encourage people to do.”