The $9 million, Chicago-based North Side Community Federal Credit Union has its roots in activism.

In the early 1970s, when Angela Turley sought a bank loan to buy a house in the city's uptown neighborhood, a banker said no, instead suggesting she look for a new home in a Chicago suburb. Because of that redlining experience, in addition to her knowledge that women lacked access to financial services, Turley was inspired to establish the credit union in 1974 when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed, giving women the right to apply for credit.

That same activism lives on at North Side Community, which is believed to be the first financial institution in the nation to launch a gender-affirming procedures loan product package, which was created by the credit union's accounting specialist, Lee Dewey, an LGBTQ activist.

“We were kind of founded on activism,” Sarah Marshall, president/CEO of North Side Community, said. “We have a board member who is pretty active in the LGBT community and has done a lot of legal work in the community. We also have another member on our supervisory committee who teaches gender studies so the (general affirming loan product) was not an issue.”

Over the years, the credit union has received numerous awards for its community advocacy, neighborhood development, community partnerships and volunteer services. It's also been featured in local and national articles as an exemplary financial institution that offers short-term loans as an alternative to payday lenders.

For North Side Community, providing a specialty loan product for transgender and queer people was another way to fulfill its mission of promoting the financial well-being of a diverse community through affordable financial services and the expansion of the availability of alternative financial resources.

The GAP LP can be used to finance expenses such as medical surgeries, procedures, voice lessons and a new wardrobe.

“This is really about addressing the financial insecurity and the marginalization of queer and trans folks, especially as it relates people of color, and people who are underbanked or unbankable,” he said. “So that's really what I wanted to address – the financial insecurity that is seen in my community and that's also seen in the communities that we serve here.”

Dewey, who is genderqueer, said the new loan package does more than just provide financing for a specific group of members who are transgender, genderqueer or gender fluid individuals.

Genderqueer people embrace a fluidity of gender expression that is not limiting, according to Gender Diversity, a Seattle-based organization that works to increase awareness and understanding of gender variations in children, adolescents and adults.

For example, genderqueer individuals may not identify as male or female but instead as both, neither or a blend, according to Gender Diversity. A genderqueer person also does not identify strictly as gay or straight.

However, the term genderqueer is not synonymous with transgender, an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the reproductive organs that they were born with, according to GLAAD, a New York-based organization formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

“I'm pretty gender fluid,” Dewey said. “I wear both men's and women's clothes depending on how I feel on a particular day.”

Dewey, who has a beard, sometimes wears a skirt to the credit union workplace.

The credit union has provided its staff of eight gender variation education and sensitivity training.

“I don't necessarily know everybody's personal feelings about it, but we did some training and part of our mission is to meet people where they are,” Marshall said.

She said she hired Dewey because his genderqueer identity has nothing to do with his job duties or performance.

Transgender people are more likely than the general population to be unemployed and live in poverty. The unemployment rate among the nation's estimated transgender persons is 28% among blacks, 18% among Hispanics and 12% among whites, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive organization, and the Movement Advancement Project, an organization that researches LGBTQ equality issues.

In addition, 34% of black transgender people, 28% of Latino transgender people and 18% of Asian transgender people earn incomes of less than $10,000 a year.

In its 2016 Corporate Equality Index, Human Rights Campaign Foundation President Chad Griffin wrote that in 2002, only 5% of the nation's Fortune 500 corporations extended gender identity protections and transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage. Today, 93% of American companies protect employees based on gender identity.

What's more, he noted no major business offered critical transgender inclusive benefits in 2002. Today, 511 corporations offer transgender-inclusive healthcare insurance.

“But we know that policies in and of themselves do not always translate into genuine inclusion of the transgender community,” Griffin wrote. “Critical cultural shifts need to take place to foster greater inclusion of the entire LGBT community.”

The typical North Side Community member is a low-income minority borrower who lives, lives, works or worships in the Uptown, Rogers Park, Edgewater or Lakeview neighborhood. Andersonville, a neighborhood of Edgewater, and Boystown, a neighborhood in Lakeview, are known as predominately LGBT communities.

About 10 people have applied for the credit union's GAP LP loan, but none of them qualified for it because of credit issues.

Nonetheless, the loan package was designed to help members rebuild their credit score or to shore up their savings and credit score.

The “starting small” feature of the loan package allows entry-level borrowers to qualify for an unsecured $500 loan. The “build and save” feature is for members who are interested in building their savings along with improving their credit score as they repay their loan of $500, $750 or $1,000.

Although these small loans are not enough to finance a surgery, it is enough money to buy a wardrobe, or pay for voice lessons or less expensive cosmetic procedures such as laser hair removal.

The GAP LP package also includes a signature access loan, which offers an amount of up to $10,000. A benefactor secured loan option also is available,

Dewey said the loan applicants became members, participated in financial counseling and are working to repair their credit.

Another challenge, however, is that some of the transgender applicants don't have traditional jobs in which they receive a paycheck, and the starting small feature of the GAP LP package requires payroll direct deposit.

Despite these challenges, Marshall said she is hoping that time, word-of-mouth marketing and other factors will get the word out about this new loan product to the LGTBQ community.

“There are a number of social justice issues related to this project, and so I think some of what we're trying to do is to identify ways that we can provide additional support and whether there are additional funders out there who might be willing to help us get this loan product rolling,” she said. “But yes, I would say that it (GAP LP) has been very positively received. And aside from the product access, I think it's been helpful for our reputation in the community as being seen as the financial institution that is friendly to the LGBTQ community.”'

Like many very small credit unions, North Side Community wrestles with financial challenges.

Though it has maintained a net worth ranging from 7.28% to 7.67% over the last five years, the credit union's ROAA has lurked in negative territory in four out of the last five years.

What helps the credit union make ends meet is about 30% of its revenue is generated from grants provided by the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, the Private Bank and NorthShore Community Bank

Although the NFCDCU in New York City is not aware of any other credit union that is offering something similar to GAP LP, the organization said it is not surprised that North Side Community is the first cooperative to offer such a product.

“They have a history of testing and trying out new products to serve different parts of the underserved communities,” NFCDCU Strategic Initiatives Manager Ann D. Solomon said.

She noted the Chicago cooperative was among the first to pilot NFCDCU's Borrow and Save Program and helped refine it. The credit union was also one of the first in the country to offer a U.S. citizenship loan product for immigrants.

“It's not surprising to us that they would be innovating in this way,” she said. “The LGBT has definitely been a community that has been historically underserved by financial services.”

Instant Insights /

Credit Union Loan Serves Gender Fluid Market

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