Aileen's transition fund
Donation protected
My Story
My name is Aileen, I am a 37-year old transgender woman living in Gdynia, Poland. My request is not the most typical one, because I’m financially fairly stable, hold a reasonably paying job, and don’t experience as much discrimination as many other trans women do. My background, however, is a completely different story.
I was born in the United States and adopted by a Dutch woman who happened to be terminally ill. At the age of 15 I was already taking care of myself and by 17 my adoptive mother died. Shortly thereafter I ended up homeless and for years afterwards I was trying to get my life back together. I have contact with some members of my biological family back in Minnesota, but my mother, with whom I started having contact again around the time I was 20, turned her back on me once again when she found out I was going to transition. Coming from this sort of background, I’ve achieved quite a bit in comparison to others simply because I’ve managed to get most of my life together, and many people would say that my problems are like “first-world problems” because I don’t struggle to eat or have housing, which many other trans people do.
However, in my case, I’ve got other challenges. In order to find stable employment that paid more than the local minimum wage, I had to move out of the Netherlands to Poland. While the Netherlands is infinitely better in terms of trans rights on paper, in reality it just means that in the Netherlands we’re pitied by society, and seen as people who have psychological issues, so, there’s a lot of help in terms of getting welfare, and surgeries are being paid and what not, and not much transphobia on the streets, while in Poland we’re just tossed together with the L, G and B, which allows for much less discrimination on the labour market, but in return, other than my hormones, which are partially refunded by my health insurance, and my specialists, which are funded by my company insurance, nothing is really refunded by the state-run health care system. I was looking into getting some money from the bank, but years ago I’ve already taken out massive loans in the time I was suffering from massive depression prior to actually coming out and having a partner who was also mentally in not the best state. My current debts are manageable with my income, but I really don’t want to take out much more, and since I’ve recently changed jobs, I need to wait another six months anyways.
Then there are other issues – when I was taken to the Netherlands after adoption, my adoptive mother never legalized my birth certificate, nor any of the adoption papers, and as a result, I can not legally change my gender marker nor my name in the Netherlands unless I legalize my own adoption papers and birth certificate first – at the age of 37. In order to do that, I need to be in the State of Washington where she resided and I was born. And yes, in theory I could just go back to the Netherlands, sign up for benefits and get on the waiting list for SRS and FFS, but the quality of transgender health care there actually is worse than here in Poland, and they require a diagnosis and will put you on the waiting list then, which at this time is years – years I’d go without hormones unless I procure them myself. Even if that was all something to consider, I’m just way to ambitious for that, just waste the last good years I have on waiting. After most of my life has been wasted due to environmental factors, I’d rather end my own life than waste another three, four or five years. It’s just not worth it, I’d like to finally enjoy stuff.
One of my aunts told me to make a campaign here, as the few members of my family with whom I have contact with aren’t exactly in any position to be of much help. Basically, what I’m looking for right now is support with paying for my laser treatments, getting my documents sorted and keeping my car in a properly working condition as my specialists are spread out over the country. I’ve set the amount to 15K EUR, because it would go a long way into paying for my FFS as well without going deeper into debt, but getting the most important things covered; my documents, my laser treatments and transportation costs, are far less, maybe a quarter of that amount at most. Of course, if by any crazy luck I’ll be able to raise more, which I highly doubt, it would go towards my SRS, but honestly, this is the least important as I’m not really sexually active to begin with, although it might be nice to regain that ability. Right now, the important stuff is to actually have documents to refer to me, and to deal with my face, and if I were to have to deal with all this alone like I’ve had to with everything in my life, it would possibly take many more years which I really don’t want to waste anymore.
Thank you for your support <3
Aileen.
My name is Aileen, I am a 37-year old transgender woman living in Gdynia, Poland. My request is not the most typical one, because I’m financially fairly stable, hold a reasonably paying job, and don’t experience as much discrimination as many other trans women do. My background, however, is a completely different story.
I was born in the United States and adopted by a Dutch woman who happened to be terminally ill. At the age of 15 I was already taking care of myself and by 17 my adoptive mother died. Shortly thereafter I ended up homeless and for years afterwards I was trying to get my life back together. I have contact with some members of my biological family back in Minnesota, but my mother, with whom I started having contact again around the time I was 20, turned her back on me once again when she found out I was going to transition. Coming from this sort of background, I’ve achieved quite a bit in comparison to others simply because I’ve managed to get most of my life together, and many people would say that my problems are like “first-world problems” because I don’t struggle to eat or have housing, which many other trans people do.
However, in my case, I’ve got other challenges. In order to find stable employment that paid more than the local minimum wage, I had to move out of the Netherlands to Poland. While the Netherlands is infinitely better in terms of trans rights on paper, in reality it just means that in the Netherlands we’re pitied by society, and seen as people who have psychological issues, so, there’s a lot of help in terms of getting welfare, and surgeries are being paid and what not, and not much transphobia on the streets, while in Poland we’re just tossed together with the L, G and B, which allows for much less discrimination on the labour market, but in return, other than my hormones, which are partially refunded by my health insurance, and my specialists, which are funded by my company insurance, nothing is really refunded by the state-run health care system. I was looking into getting some money from the bank, but years ago I’ve already taken out massive loans in the time I was suffering from massive depression prior to actually coming out and having a partner who was also mentally in not the best state. My current debts are manageable with my income, but I really don’t want to take out much more, and since I’ve recently changed jobs, I need to wait another six months anyways.
Then there are other issues – when I was taken to the Netherlands after adoption, my adoptive mother never legalized my birth certificate, nor any of the adoption papers, and as a result, I can not legally change my gender marker nor my name in the Netherlands unless I legalize my own adoption papers and birth certificate first – at the age of 37. In order to do that, I need to be in the State of Washington where she resided and I was born. And yes, in theory I could just go back to the Netherlands, sign up for benefits and get on the waiting list for SRS and FFS, but the quality of transgender health care there actually is worse than here in Poland, and they require a diagnosis and will put you on the waiting list then, which at this time is years – years I’d go without hormones unless I procure them myself. Even if that was all something to consider, I’m just way to ambitious for that, just waste the last good years I have on waiting. After most of my life has been wasted due to environmental factors, I’d rather end my own life than waste another three, four or five years. It’s just not worth it, I’d like to finally enjoy stuff.
One of my aunts told me to make a campaign here, as the few members of my family with whom I have contact with aren’t exactly in any position to be of much help. Basically, what I’m looking for right now is support with paying for my laser treatments, getting my documents sorted and keeping my car in a properly working condition as my specialists are spread out over the country. I’ve set the amount to 15K EUR, because it would go a long way into paying for my FFS as well without going deeper into debt, but getting the most important things covered; my documents, my laser treatments and transportation costs, are far less, maybe a quarter of that amount at most. Of course, if by any crazy luck I’ll be able to raise more, which I highly doubt, it would go towards my SRS, but honestly, this is the least important as I’m not really sexually active to begin with, although it might be nice to regain that ability. Right now, the important stuff is to actually have documents to refer to me, and to deal with my face, and if I were to have to deal with all this alone like I’ve had to with everything in my life, it would possibly take many more years which I really don’t want to waste anymore.
Thank you for your support <3
Aileen.
Organizer
Aileen Marzanna Bizzell
Organizer
Arnhem, NL
