I am a queer, trans, autistic Latina who is facing imminent housing and food insecurity. I need your help to keep a roof over my head as well as food on the table and maintain my medical care.

What's Happening:

Employment

I was let go from my job just before the Thanksgiving holiday. With it being the end of the year, and the economy in the state it's in, I am not holding out much hope that I will immediately find more work.

It was already difficult finding a job as a Trans woman prior to the current economic chaos. Trans women haven an unemployment rate of 18% and 40% of those who have found work are grossly underemployed. The numbers are just as demoralizing for autistic folks.

As jobs have been cratering, and Transphobia is skyrocketing, I am nearly unemployable despite being incredibly qualified for many types of jobs. I have been unemployed and underemployed for almost two years now. What meager gig work I have managed to continue piece together since that time has effectively dried up, and the gig work I have found I have had to do perform under constant threat to life and limb because I was born Latina.

Support

I have not had access to the social safety net — medicaid, unemployment, and food assistance for the last five years since my name change. In addition to the access issues caused by Illinois, the recent Federal changes have made my receiving any government assistance next to impossible.

I have been working with a Trans community organization to redress this, but so far have been unsuccessful.

Gender Affirming Care

As I have not had access to Medicaid, I have had to rely on the beneficence of community medical programs. The clinic I have been receiving my gender affirming care from has been taking steps, since the current administration took office, to scale back my care and now everything is out of pocket.

They also scaled back my HRT, for political rather than medical reasons, and was callously told — as far as the physical and devastating metal health impact of being less of who I have become — "you'll adjust."

What I Need:

I am trying to raise $1,100 to address my immediate needs and keep me going until January, when I am hoping more work might become available again. This would cover:

• Making Rent/Utilities

• Food/Basic Goods

• Medication

My Story:

My journey has been marked by persistent challenges. In the eleven years I have been out, I've weathered repeated professional and personal obstacles. Eight years ago, I lost my stable full-time job due to workplace discrimination. I was forced to emergency move to escape an abusive, transphobic roommate, which launched me into five years of housing insecurity.

Determined to build a sustainable future, I went back to school and studied web development. Despite my qualifications, I found it increasingly difficult to break into the tech industry.

It is a truth that is part of my own story, but one I learned through my research I spearheaded into trans workplace experiences was systemic as well. The only trans professionals who successfully secure full-time employment are those who have already established their careers before transitioning.

Despite learning this I continued to try and break through. Surviving from a pieced together an income earned through dog walking, day labor gigs, and whatever freelance development gigs I could fight to secure for experience.

A breakthrough came when I joined a queer-owned marketing company. As a full-time freelancer for them, I worked my way up to lead developer and project manager, finally achieving a semblance of stable housing. But in 2022, everything changed when the company was sold to a new owner who demanded I "not be trans in the workplace." When I chose to continue to live authentically, my work hours were drastically cut from near-full-time to just a few hours a month.

Since then, I've been cobbling together gig work — from pet care, house painting, home improvement, landscaping, to copy editing — while continuously searching for stable employment in any field or retail space matching my lifetime of acquired skills. The work has grown scarcer, and barriers from increasing transphobia have made continued housing security increasingly precarious.

This has been, all the while, personally living through the traumas, large and small, that make up the unending journey of resilience that is a trans person's life. From microaggressions and the harsher slurs, to the systemic workplace, medical, and legislative attacks and executive discrimination which the administration has been waging to make our very existence a crime. As well as the daily vigilance to avoid the outright verbal and physical assaults that I regularly experience from merely existing in public.

The risk only increased, being a brown trans person of color when, despite being a citizen, travelling trough my neighborhood, and the neighborhoods where I've picked up gig work, became war zones and the reality of being imprisoned for my skin color and gender identity - despite being a citizen - became a daily danger.

Despite my personal struggle, I have remained committed to social movement work supporting all marginalized peoples. I have has spent decades fighting for survival, justice, and community empowerment. My advocacy focuses on creating systemic change, amplifying voices that are often silenced, and building collective power for those facing intersectional oppression.

Your Support Means:

• Immediate housing and food security

• Maintain lifesaving gender affirming care

• Continued community advocacy

I've never stopped fighting — for myself, for my community, for a more just world. With your help, I can keep pushing forward, and continue to find work stability while fighting for solidarity and hope.

Thank you for seeing me, hearing me, and standing with me.