Help Trans Danielle Get Asylum And Afford Living
Donation protected
This is an extremely urgent call for financial help for Danielle, 24 year old Jamaican trans woman and asylum seeker who, recently arrived in France, was arrested at the Paris Airport, has no money for food, lodging, legal representation,....
My name is Iman Le Caire. I am also a Trans woman. Originally from Egypt.
And an Asylee living in New York.
For the past 6 months I have been dedicated my life as a humanitarian, working exclusively as a volunteer, and saving the lives of Trans women and men living in countries dangerously transphobic.
Sunday, December 27, I received a call from a Refugee Lawyer in France. Aware of my humanitarian work she wanted to let me know that she was rushing to the Paris Airport to represent Danielle who got arrested while seeking asylum.
The lawyer managed to get Danielle free and hopefully a path to a visa and will represent Danielle for her asylum case providing that we managed to raise money for legal fees.
As soon as she got released I managed to call Danielle. Danielle has no cash, no food, no winter cloth, no place to stay.
I sent her money through MoneyGram and booked her a hotel in the center of Paris for a couple of nights and found her a taxi even if it was after curfew and an hour drive between the airport and the hotel. I have been sending cash and paid for hotel nights for the week.
Danielle is going to need a lot of financial help to start her new life in France. She left Jamaica with nothing besides a little bag. But she will make it and we will make sure that she will. My husband and I have daily video calls with Danielle. She calls me Mommy and my husband Papa (he is French). We are committed to guide her in her new life which will encompass:
1. Decent Food Budget
2. Clothing Budget
3. Furnished Studio
4. Resident Visa and Asylum in France and Lawyer Fees
5. French Language Courses
6. Transgender Beautification, Face Feminization, Hormone Therapy (anything not covered by French Health System)
Danielle worked as a Hair Stylist in Jamaica and would like to perfect her skills in Hair. Training Costs should be anticipated.
See below Danielle's story in her own words:
“My name is Danielle. I was born Clifton McKenzie. I am a 24 years old Transgender woman from St Mary in Jamaica.
At the ages of 14 and 17 I was raped. My sexuality became very confused and I realized that I could not identify with my birth gender.
This caused a lot of fallouts between myself and family members. I was cast aside, beaten, and treated like I was a plague to my family.
As I grew older I began to identify and feel like a woman, a reality that is impossible to realize or embrace as a Jamaican national.
Living in Jamaica it is a risk to identify with any gender that is not your birth gender.
At age 17 I decided to come out to my family and let them know that I would prefer to be identified as a young lady. This angered my father and caused him to beat me over the head with a pot spoon and burnt me with hot porridge then threw me out of his house to live on the streets.
To survive while living on the streets I got involved in prostitution which further exposed me to violence by the Jamaican society at large, a highly homophobic and transphobic society.
On one occasion while I was with a client, who thought I was a full woman but found out during out time together that I still had my genitalia, he stabbed me twice.
Incidents similar in nature occurred regularly forcing me to decide to leave Jamaica and seek a better life in a country where I could live as the gender I am comfortable identifying as.
I thought, like many Jamaican before me, that the USA, would be the country. But my tourist visa application was rejected and that was before the pandemic. Anyway I found out that life expectancy for trans women of color is 35 in the USA. Is it really the dream country we want to live in?!
I recently found a way to fly to Europe with a stopover in Paris where I told immigration that I was seeking asylum. And I got arrested. And here I am. I now have an Egyptian mother and a French father and even if they live in New York right now and cannot come to see me, they will never abandon me. ❤️❤️❤️❤️”
My name is Iman Le Caire. I am also a Trans woman. Originally from Egypt.
And an Asylee living in New York.
For the past 6 months I have been dedicated my life as a humanitarian, working exclusively as a volunteer, and saving the lives of Trans women and men living in countries dangerously transphobic.
Sunday, December 27, I received a call from a Refugee Lawyer in France. Aware of my humanitarian work she wanted to let me know that she was rushing to the Paris Airport to represent Danielle who got arrested while seeking asylum.
The lawyer managed to get Danielle free and hopefully a path to a visa and will represent Danielle for her asylum case providing that we managed to raise money for legal fees.
As soon as she got released I managed to call Danielle. Danielle has no cash, no food, no winter cloth, no place to stay.
I sent her money through MoneyGram and booked her a hotel in the center of Paris for a couple of nights and found her a taxi even if it was after curfew and an hour drive between the airport and the hotel. I have been sending cash and paid for hotel nights for the week.
Danielle is going to need a lot of financial help to start her new life in France. She left Jamaica with nothing besides a little bag. But she will make it and we will make sure that she will. My husband and I have daily video calls with Danielle. She calls me Mommy and my husband Papa (he is French). We are committed to guide her in her new life which will encompass:
1. Decent Food Budget
2. Clothing Budget
3. Furnished Studio
4. Resident Visa and Asylum in France and Lawyer Fees
5. French Language Courses
6. Transgender Beautification, Face Feminization, Hormone Therapy (anything not covered by French Health System)
Danielle worked as a Hair Stylist in Jamaica and would like to perfect her skills in Hair. Training Costs should be anticipated.
See below Danielle's story in her own words:
“My name is Danielle. I was born Clifton McKenzie. I am a 24 years old Transgender woman from St Mary in Jamaica.
At the ages of 14 and 17 I was raped. My sexuality became very confused and I realized that I could not identify with my birth gender.
This caused a lot of fallouts between myself and family members. I was cast aside, beaten, and treated like I was a plague to my family.
As I grew older I began to identify and feel like a woman, a reality that is impossible to realize or embrace as a Jamaican national.
Living in Jamaica it is a risk to identify with any gender that is not your birth gender.
At age 17 I decided to come out to my family and let them know that I would prefer to be identified as a young lady. This angered my father and caused him to beat me over the head with a pot spoon and burnt me with hot porridge then threw me out of his house to live on the streets.
To survive while living on the streets I got involved in prostitution which further exposed me to violence by the Jamaican society at large, a highly homophobic and transphobic society.
On one occasion while I was with a client, who thought I was a full woman but found out during out time together that I still had my genitalia, he stabbed me twice.
Incidents similar in nature occurred regularly forcing me to decide to leave Jamaica and seek a better life in a country where I could live as the gender I am comfortable identifying as.
I thought, like many Jamaican before me, that the USA, would be the country. But my tourist visa application was rejected and that was before the pandemic. Anyway I found out that life expectancy for trans women of color is 35 in the USA. Is it really the dream country we want to live in?!
I recently found a way to fly to Europe with a stopover in Paris where I told immigration that I was seeking asylum. And I got arrested. And here I am. I now have an Egyptian mother and a French father and even if they live in New York right now and cannot come to see me, they will never abandon me. ❤️❤️❤️❤️”
Organizer and beneficiary
Iman Le Caire
Organizer
New York, NY
Jean-Manuel Pourquet
Beneficiary
