Help Xi Find Stability in the Midst of Chaos

Our community is at risk. The body modification scene has become the home for so many outcasted individuals such as the alternative and queer youth, transgender and non binary community, as well as almost all POC clients. There has always been an issue with barriers to mental health resources, access to therapy & proper medication. In order to combat the pain and the trauma that has afflicted these communities for far too long, we have found ways to heal. Taking back the power of beauty, queer markers, owning flamboyance in the city that started it all… I found a way to make it work for us.

I want to continue more than anything else to heal the people around the world as I have done already in less than two years. Imagine where we can be together in 10. It is so important now more than ever to have a in safe place for us. There is a target on our back, and now mine. I am not going to let an industry that pretends to be your safe place destroy the one I created for us in just one corner of Live by the Sword in Brooklyn.

I am a suicide witness survivor, this is a huge reason why I had so much ambition because I never wanted someone to go through what I did or feel like they had no one to turn to in times of dire need. I have my clients come to me for free cleaning services so they can talk about things that are hurting them with someone who understands for free. I have many times felt guilty for charging people when they have $200 in their back account and they want to give me $50 in New York City.

I have been shunned, wrongfully terminated after being harassed, abused, and gaslit by 30+ piercers & management for speaking out and telling them I have evidence of everything they have done to us in terms of stealing money, neglecting biohazards and hiring piercers that are unfit and untrained. I have repeatedly told them they are doing illegal activities and that I just needed this stability while I grieved my partners loss. They told me at 24 years old, 9 months into the healing process that I had to keep it all to myself because it was not professional. I hid in the bathroom and went outside to cry many times, it was not public. It has still not even been 2 years and I have repeatedly been denied emotional security and now been terminated for my mental health. I left my last shop after I was targeted by another two cis white women for the same reason because I had a more difficult life than them, and waited until the lights were off and the clients had left to cry to my close friends who are all POC and gender queer.

We are at risk. I am at risk. I am being threatened with homelessness and my former coworkers are harassing and ridiculing those that stand up for me in an attempt to silence all of this commotion. I will not stay silent as when Ryan stopped talking, he completed the deed. That is why I cannot do this.

I know I have become a beacon of hope as many other people have regardless of the body mods, people need to know that there is a way out and it is beautiful just wait and see. I feel like my hard work is being punished for being genuine, loving, and successful. We all deserve better.

It’s not about the money, and it never was but it is a necessity to keep me here for you and to make sure I can get access to food, mental health resources, and to invest in a new shop a new collective to keep us safe and to hide in a loving environment where we can have art piercings and tattoos for what we can afford and we can ignore the people who make us feel weak.

I will lose access to therapy in 7 months when I turn 26. I am at risk of losing my apartment as I have no money for rent and I haven’t for 2 months.

Please consider donating to help me stay in New York City. I cannot leave my clients and my friends—sometimes it’s hard even make that distinction—behind. I don’t want to set the example Ryan set for me which was that completion is a reality that can be achieved. I am a 1099 employee, this means that I can be terminated for no reason and have no right to severance or unemployment.

Let’s fight this together. Spread love and positivity only. I love you all thank you for being the support system I needed when you never truly knew how much it meant to me until now.