Deep Trouble in the Deep South

Hey all, my name's Claire and I'm in pretty dire straits. I'm a trans woman in Alabama currently living with my extremely conservative folks whom I moved in with halfway through the pandemic to get out of a very unhealthy living situation. While I've been able to transition under their noses by staying as closeted and quiet as possible, that's been reaching a boiling point for a while, and there's a good chance that I'll lose my housing in the near future. My stepdad and his family are pretty homophobic and I have to suppress any visible notion of feminine appearance or presentation anytime he or they are around. My mom has tried to smooth things over by pretending that everything's fine and that her son's just going through a phase, but I’ve reached the point physically where that illusion is dissipating, and I can no longer mentally handle closeting myself just to be able to exist in, enter, or leave the house I live in.

My workplace does not cover trans healthcare expenses under their "health insurance," used here to mean a series of agreements negotiated by a small business owner with specific entities in the tri-county area for specific discounted services. It's subpar by healthy cis person standards. They pay $15 an hour for my position and that amount doesn't cover rent and utilities in my area. It worked for saving up month to month for grey market HRT and possible emergency expenses as long as I had a place to stay. It will not work when that arrangement falls through.

While I’ve been out of the field for a few years, I have the skills to land a tech job with a living wage outside of the South, possibly outside of the country. I do not have the funds to make that move, and I do not have the time to continue trying to scrape them up at the rate I’ve been going at. Alabama is a deeply hostile environment for trans people, and I’ve only been able to make it work for this past year because I’ve been able to sequester myself away at a job that isn’t physically customer-facing and save most of what I made for transition expenses. With my housing on thin ice, and with the cascade effect that the pending repeal of Roe vs Wade will have on queer rights and trans safety, I’m looking at a situation in my near future where I won’t be able to stay afloat here.

I’ve got three target job markets outside of the Deep South that I’m looking at, one in the Far East working a Status of Forces Agreement job for the DoD and two in Minnesota and New York, respectively. Those plans are flexible, but the common goal is to get a job in a blue state or federal jurisdiction, to be able to afford to get there, and to be able to afford at least a month of rent and living expenses. To that end, I’m looking to raise enough to cover at least plane fare and/or driving + moving expenses to the closest of those three areas in the event that the bottom falls out from under me and I Have to Get Out Now. Any donated funds over travel costs will be going to maintaining HRT and reducing the initial living expenses hit. In my off-work hours, I’m liquidating all possessions I don’t need to try and build up an additional safety net. Anything I can’t sell outright is going to local trans folks who are staying to ride the coming storm out. Between that, grinding away at tech certifications, and living in a deeply oppressive environment outside of the 11x11 room I call home, I am stretched pretty thin.

Every little bit helps, and I will pay forward whatever I can to the best of my ability. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. Thank you for reading this.