Help three trans women escape Texas
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$745 raised of
17 donations
Hello All,
My name is Marisol. My partner Jade and I, along with our friend Cat are three trans women trying to escape anti-trans laws here in Texas, to Seattle, WA where the laws are much friendlier to trans people.. We need all the help we can get to make this plan a reality..
A bit about us:
I have lived in the Austin area a majority of my life. I am currently a retail employee. In my job I have been harassed and even threatened by customers for being trans. My choice of employment is limited not only because I am openly trans but due to having epilepsy, a condition I have had since childhood. As a result, I missed out the quintessential teen experience of learning how to drive. I have to depend on family, my partner, lackluster Texas public transportation and ride shares to get around. On days when I have to rely on ride shares to get to work, I am working for free just to keep my job. Due to having inconsistent transportation and having to miss work due health reasons, I was forced to move back in with my parents. While my family helps me with transportation and housing, they have never been supportive of me being trans.
Jade is a born and bred Texan. She was born on the Texas/Mexico border where she spent most of formative years and later moved to the Austin area for collage. Since graduating she had worked in mental health and special education for the last 14 years. With the anti-trans legislation in Texas, along with the Governor of Texas publicly doxxing a gender non-conforming school teacher.* She knew that for her own safety she knew she would have to step away from a career she loved to live as her authentic self. Since then she has had trouble finding long term employment. And as a result has been working in an "as needed" position working with children and has been forced to boy mode for her own safety. However, due to the recently economic uncertainty has been let go along with hundreds of other employees.**
Our friend Cat is coming with us and she desperately needs this move as a chance to restart. Six months ago, she escaped from a decade-long marriage that had turned abusive and controlling. Her wife kept her socially isolated, kept her so responsible for bills that she never had money of her own to escape, even kept her from renewing her driver's license so she would lose access to transportation (and Texas is not forgiving to those without a car). Transition allowed her a way out: her wife left her over it, suddenly moving out to live with a partner they never told her about and taking nearly everything of value with them. Cat needs a fresh start in a place where she can earn a sustainable living. Cat has a stable fulltime job as a work-from-home video game QA worker, but the hourly wages it pays in Texas are too low to live on. Without this move, she faces homelessness, and wouldnt even have the resources to move back with her parents in even more transphobic rural Arkansas.
*
https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/abbott-calls-for-ban-on-gender-non-conforming-teachers-lgbtq-educators-respond/
**