help me survive and fight

Let's be real. We live in such a cruel, unfeeling, uncaring order. I am committed to doing whatever I can to make it a little more tolerable. I want my neighbors to breathe freely and to grow and love. I am fighting every single day towards a better world even if those results are not visible right away. I am committed to drilling down and doing what must be done even if it takes a long time to reap the reward. All good things take time, and time itself is a vanishingly scarce commodity. And that's what I'm asking for, I need the time to develop projects and initiatives that can sustain my life in the long term. It takes a lot of security to build things that don't have an immediate return. I have wanted for years to share my voice and to write about the world as I encounter it. That's why one of the things I want to build is my own platform for writing and publishing articles about the area I live in and documenting the landscape of struggle.

Please invest in me and my future. I have had an incredibly hard time living and surviving in our economy. I have bounced between unsustainable job to unsustainable job that have left me drained and demoralized. I keep trying, keep applying even for dead-end jobs that have zero prospects for advancement because I just need to survive. Your contribution can allow me to stand another day where I can get something better. I am in a mostly secure situation, but it's not the most ideal. Another family member of mine has moved back home and has children of their own. We need to be able to let them have their own room, and in order for me to move out I'm going to need several hundred dollars coming in to live independently.

I suspect and believe that I am facing employment rejection because of who I am as a brown person, as a woman, someone who is queer, as an individual with autism, and for being transgender. Here in this economy, we are told that we must work or perish and then are expected to grovel to the petty whims of employers who can look at your resume for twenty seconds before crumpling and tossing and then face zero repercussions if they did so because of hate in their heart or from completely baseless judgments of your character. As much as I cannot stand this, I continue on and keep trying and applying. In a country where the Supreme Court has legalized discrimination against LGBTQ people though, the prospects do start to feel grim and hopeless. Even before that ruling, I have felt the sting of workplace harassment and abandonment by employers who claim to support equity and nondiscrimination.

I just want to have a tiny bit of security so that I can invest my time in serving my neighbors and community. I want to be able to build community platforms where we can fight and take back some of our own power. I have been building and organizing working class institutions in the place I live, filling in a leadership vacuum in my organization and stepping up to be a co-chair. I'm proud to have turned us around and that we're helping working class people take back power over their own lives. Please help me take some power in my own life.

I'm not looking for an office, I go to the library. I don't buy twenty dollar lunches, I pack my own or eat at home. I'm not looking for frills and luxury, I just want to be able to stand on my own feet.

Please just help me fight. Please help me write. Please help me out of my parent's house which I have had to move back into because I have been crushed by rent and myriad expenses. I don't want to ever be intimidated by my conditions but to overcome them.

I want to share with you my wins and losses and make updates here as things get off the ground and I can show you the concrete results of my work. I want to be able to fully invest in my projects and organizing. I want to travel across Northwest Florida and meet so many people I have been waiting to connect with to hear and amplify their stories. I want to build networks of support and solidarity, I want to tell the world about the rising neofascism being wrought in Florida as immigrant families are criminalized and deported, and my queer friends and family are being driven from our state. I can’t stand another day when my hometown is known more for its hate and cruelty rather than its love and acceptance. I hope to not just get monetary support but to build relationships and gain allies and mentors who can help me help myself rise up over my conditions and help others do the same. Come on, let’s win the future!

So friends, comrades, brothers, sisters, siblings: please give me some money

This song isn't all that relevent to my fundraiser but it brings me to tears of hope and joy that we can in fact take care of everyone and build a future we will not be ashmed of