Hi, my name is Michaela Joy, and I’m reaching out for help to secure stable housing during a difficult time.

Since resigning from my job in October 2023, I’ve spent over a year struggling with unemployment and financial hardship. Now, in January 2025, I’m finally working again and doing everything I can to rebuild—but I’ve received a notice to vacate my apartment and face eviction by February 3rd.

I am currently four months behind on rent and hoping to raise enough to cover my back rent and late fees so I can stay in my home. If that isn’t possible, these funds will help me secure new housing and cover moving expenses.

This is an incredibly difficult time, and I’m asking for your generosity, kindness, and support as I work to regain stability. Any contribution, no matter the amount, would mean the world to me. Even if you’re unable to donate, sharing this fundraiser would be a huge help.

How your support helps:

$25 covers medications that keep me upright

$50 pays late fees to my rental company

$100 keeps my utilities on and my phone connected

$500 makes a huge dent in rent

$900 covers a full month of rent

My total amount owed to my rental company as of now is $4,114.50.

If I’m unable to stay in my current home, these funds will help me transition:

$30 covers a moving truck rental

$55 pays for a month of a small storage unit

$90 covers the heartbreaking cost of surrendering my cats

$700 helps secure a month in a new place

I’m asking for $5,000 to get back on my feet. Anything raised beyond that will go toward stabilizing my housing even further.

Asking for help in this way means swallowing 37 years of inherited family pride and rejecting the shame I’ve carried for so long.

What I have to give in return is my gratitude, my skills, my determination, and my voice.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for any support you can offer.

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My Home

The apartment I’m currently living in is the longest home I’ve ever had. I’ve been here since 2016—before that, I grew up moving between homes and, as an adult, shifted from apartment to apartment. The thought of leaving this place is incredibly difficult, not just because of the physical space but because of the roots I’ve established in my neighborhood and community. I’m allowing myself to accept that I may have to forfeit this home, but my most fundamental need is to secure a safe, stable place to live.

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Instability

This past year has been one of rejection and uncertainty. I’ve been denied government assistance, turned down for countless jobs, and rejected from graduate programs. I can’t seem to catch a break.

At the beginning of this year, I finally landed a retail job—someone finally took a chance on me. I don’t know if it was the economy, my identity, or my recent work in nonprofit transgender advocacy that made this past year so grueling, but I’ve spent it floating—working tirelessly to ground myself again.

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Surviving

The stress of managing my health amid financial hardship has forced me to confront the painful reality of rationing food, forgoing medications, and struggling to find the energy to push through each day. I am exhausted. I’m in survival mode, and I question whether I’ve ever truly been beyond it.

And yet, despite everything, I still believe that since coming out as transgender, taking steps to actualize my identity, and stepping into leadership in my community, I have been living as my fullest self. That’s what makes this moment so disorienting—the cognitive dissonance of feeling the most whole I’ve ever been while also feeling lost, discarded, and depleted.

At the same time, my state and country’s leaders actively target my community, my healthcare, and my dignity. It often feels unbearable.

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The Costs

I’ve been reflecting on how, throughout my life, I’ve set myself on fire to keep others warm. Even in my resignation as Executive Director of Metro Trans Umbrella Group, I prioritized preserving jobs for my team amid organizational cuts. I took the hit.

After I left, the organization secured the grant I had worked on for over a year and a half, stabilizing its programs, employment, and healthcare benefits—the very infrastructure I had fought to implement. I’m proud of that. But I also recognize my tendency to martyr myself in the pursuit of my values, my integrity, and the belief that I must step up when others won’t.

These same motivations led me to take in a 19-year-old transgender girl during the winter of 2022–2023 after she attempted to take her life. My employee had found her in crisis, and after she was discharged from inpatient care, I brought her into my home because she had nowhere else to go. I wanted to relieve my employee of the burden, and I thought I was in a stable enough position to help. I made the choice.

In the months that followed, she continued to harm herself, and my own health deteriorated. Eventually, I had to ask her to find another place to stay. She left—and within weeks, she took her life. The grief and disorientation still haunt me. For months, I couldn’t even enter the second bedroom of my home.

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The Weight

After her passing, I entered one of the most trying periods of my life. The Missouri Attorney General launched a direct attack on transgender healthcare, and my community was in peril. I rose to the moment, and I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish. But the weight of trauma and leadership crushed me. I still feel its heaviness today.

When I resigned, I believed I’d be able to regain stability quickly. I was deep into interviews for a promising role at another organization, but after months of silence due to their internal struggles, that door quietly closed.

I kept doing the work outside of formal organizations—testifying at the Missouri State Capitol, speaking publicly, organizing, and supporting other transgender leaders. But in my efforts to reestablish myself, I often found myself shut out, left in the dark, left to fend for myself.

I pivoted toward jobs outside of transgender advocacy, but rejection after rejection followed. I hesitate to assume it’s because of my identity, my reputation, or my past work—but after a successful career before my transition, the roadblocks I’ve faced give me pause.

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The Barriers

One of the main reasons I reached my breaking point in leadership was the feeling of being unheard, delegitimized, and dismissed.

I had witnessed these experiences in my female colleagues before, but after I transitioned, I felt firsthand the maddening reality of misogyny in the workplace. When I was perceived as a man, I was given the benefit of the doubt. I was listened to. After transitioning, speaking up as a woman was met with an entirely different reception.

Even as I write this, I have moments of doubt, questioning whether it really happened. But the disparity in treatment is undeniable, and every woman I’ve confided in understands. They’ve navigated this world far longer than I have.

Beyond that, I’ve also experienced more invalidation of my race and heritage in so-called affirming spaces than ever before. The erasure of my Filipino-American identity has been deeply disorienting. What I’ve come to recognize is an oppressive hierarchy within marginalized communities themselves—a divide that some are all too willing to exploit.

The message I received, again and again, was that I wasn’t “brown enough.” My journey as a transgender Filipina-American woman within social justice advocacy has forced me to see, with stark clarity, the uphill battle I’ve been fighting my whole life. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to name it for what it is.

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Looking Forward

What comes next for me is uncertain. I’m continuing to apply for jobs that allow me to serve my community and contribute to the greater good—especially in the face of the growing turmoil we experience every day.

I’ve also applied to another graduate program to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, further deepening my passion for poetry.

In my dream scenario, I’ll be working in transgender advocacy and community support while studying and writing poetry. That reality feels just within reach, but right now, I find myself in a place where I must ask for help to make it through.

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How You Can Help

I know I’ll get through this—one way or another. I’m deeply grateful for the generosity I’ve already received and for the kindness that shines through friends, found family, and even the quiet refuge of my local library.

As long as there is breath in my lungs, I will keep going, keep telling my story, and keep speaking out to lift all of us up.

If you can’t donate, I deeply appreciate any help in the form of:

If you have recommendations for how I can further sustain and stabilize myself, I’m open to ideas and considerations.

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Thank you for your time, your kindness, and your heart.