Help Egyptian Trans Activist: Rent & Transition

Hi, my name is Ivy/Mariam. I am a 23 year old Egyptian Queer trans woman from Cairo, I am also a feminist, and an anarcho-communist, and an LGBTQI+ rights activist.

I started my transition when I was 16 behind my family’s back, who were already aware of me being transgender, but were incredibly unsupportive despite their medical background, my family took me to see transphobic. Ignorant, and abusive doctors, Sheikhs, in order to “Sway me away from this phase”, some of these people that they made me see sexually harassed me, one time in our own home.

I’ve lived most of my life with my mom, and she was the one who raised me and my sister, as my parents separated when we were kids, and I thank god for that because I really cannot tell how much worse things may had been if my dad was present, but my mom was abusive, from the day we saw the light, me and my sister were hit, beaten, emotionally and verbally abused, financially abused, you name it, she’s a narcissist that’s what I’ve figured out, and understood from my former therapist, and all that didn’t really just happen as a form of punishment or to make us behave, it was a release for her.

Then I started my transition, my mom found out later a year after I’ve been on HRT, after she started noticing changes. We had a huge fight at the time, but it ended in a compromise on her part, and she let me stay on HRT.

Bullying and harassment and violent and threat of violence at every corner, as I move further in my transition, 17 and first time I get sexually assaulted, which I did not let my mom know about until my 20s in which she said “You choose this”, we lived in a poor area in Cairo, and my family did nothing to protect me or keep me safe, I’ve been followed from my home to my school by people in motorcycles. My school was not that close. I do not want to speculate why but I do know why.

In 2017, life started getting so much better for me, previously I did not know any other trans or LGBTQI+ people here in Egypt, I thought I was entirely alone, and I was going through it all alone, until by chance on a random transgender support group on FB, I saw a post another Egyptian trans woman made, venting about the situation here, and she introduced me to another friend of mine, who because of her belief in my ability, and skill, and passion and determination I am who I am today.

We started the first Transgender Platform in the entire region, when the movement was still picking up, and trans visibility and awareness were at their earliest. We had no funding of any sort, but we all worked because we wanted the situation for our people to be better, we wanted the conditions trans people go through in this country to be better.

After graduating from high school, I was supposed to attend a Public University here in Egypt, and Public Universities are here to serve all Egyptians alike, but I was met with discrimination based on my being trans, they essentially told me to “Only come for the exams”. And I am someone who is passionate about learning, I did not want to waste my academic education like that. Then I tried applying at Universities abroad, got accepted at UoT in Canada, but I didn’t get a scholarship, and the tuition was 35,000 CAD. A friend of my friend started a GFM campaign for me at the time but it didn’t get much support.

In 2019, I started my first paid job, as a field researcher at a local LGBTQI+ NGO on their oral history documentation project, which was to document the stories of LGBTQI+ people in Egypt and Sudan, so their stories can be heard and made known and lest they be lost from the records of history.

I left my job at that NGO in mid 2020, as the work conditions were getting worse day by day, from the workload to our pay which was decreasing and not increasing, to the no vacation time, I was going through a really terrible burnout.

After that I kept working as a freelance translator/writer, and I’ve done work for a lot of places that are also part of the LGBTQI+ movement, MamaCash/Mykali/A few local LGBTQI+ NGOs.

But in 2022 things began to get really bad, after Covid-19 happened, I was struggling to even find commissions or people that need freelance translation/writing work.

I was 3 months late on rent, by January 2022, my landlord was constantly harassing and threatening me with eviction, and every money I was able to make I would give to him so he would not just decide to throw me out of my apartment.

And I could not keep up, by Feb with than ongoing I start not being able to even afford food entirely, my mom would lend me money sometimes, and I would use it to get food/litter for my 3 cats, my babies, and I would not eat, and I do not need to explain why.

Over that period till either mid April or by the end of April, I am not really able to recall that well, I’ve lost 20 Kgs, I went from 94KG to 70Kg or something around that, because I was starving that entire time.

At that point I decided to seek the only option I had left, which had crossed my mind a few times and I had thought against it, because It is something that I never thought I would do. But starvation was worse, so I decided to start doing sex work. It was awful, if you have to do that while forced to not out of choice, it crushes your soul, and your mind, and it dehumanizes you.

But I needed to survive in any way I could, my friends did not know I was going through that, and I made sure they did not know, because I did not want anyone blaming themselves, and I did not want to burden anyone, and I did not want anyone seeing me differently.

Till I was raped, and this I had not let anyone know before this, I had to continue seeing the person who did that to me many times after, as he was the only “regular”, and he did it again, I don’t really know how many times. At some point I finally opened up to a friend of mine, and I started taking measures to escape that situation, it took a while and when I let my close friends know even though I didn’t want to do that, but I had to because I needed help.

I am using this money to get back on my feet after what I had just detailed, as well as the cost of my gender confirmation surgery.

It’ll go towards the cost of a year of therapy, and it’ll cover my living expenses for three months (That includes Rent, Bills, Groceries, Medicine, Transportation costs as I job search), the cost of the repair of my phone, and the cost of a new budget laptop, so I’d be able to apply for jobs, and work. As well as paying a debt to a dear friend of mine who helped me instantly as soon as he learned about my situation, and the cost of my gender confirmation surgery.

Getting my own gender confirmation surgery done, will make me living in Egypt immeasurably safer than it is now and it is really a long-term solution for the systemic risks and threats that I live with on a daily basis. This goes beyond alleviating dysphoria for trans people, it will factually make my existence in Egypt a lot more secure, legally and financially and it will open up many economic opportunities for me.