Help me recover after fleeing Utah.

Some kind folks are helping me evacuate but I still need your help.

I am close to being another statistic: an internally displaced person inside the United States. This is good news for me! I am now directing funds towards being successful at my destination. The evacuation costs are being covered by those kind folks. My needs at my destination include food, medical and psychiatric treatment, fuel and insurance for my transportation, cell phone, and personal care items. I will need these things until I receive state aid in my destination state. When I arrive I can share my destination as right now I must protect those who are helping me evacuate. I believe I can get hired where I am going. Your help will make all the difference.

Please read my GoFundMe updates and scroll further down here for the details of my story over the last year.

Would you please be a part of my story? You can do this by sharing my fundraiser link often and donate if you have the means. Any help at all is greatly appreciated.

I'm still on the rocks but with kind folks who help me I see the light of being safe and in a place when my human rights are better protected.

I am at a full loss for words to express my gratitude for all the help I have received so far. It helped me survive and when I broke down from the stress of being exploited and ended up in an acute behavioral health unit for suicidal ideation, it helped me feel like people still cared.

Mr Rogers said "Look for the helpers." and there have been so many. Now I have some helping me leave Utah ASAP for a better future than street level sex work, exploitation, and persecution here.

Forever yours, Opal.

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UPDATE. URGENT.

Hi, its me Opal, again.

I'm needing help. I am inpatient at a psychiatric acute stabilization at LDS hospital on the way to a residential facility to give me more time so I don't have to return to street level sex work and hopefully qualify for a trans pipeline out of Salt Lake City. If you can help me administer this fundraiser I would be so grateful. I will be going into a communication blackout for the first week in the new facility. This is the only time I have to post here.

Your help will keep me from losing my car and my belongings while I find hope and heal from recent exploitation. I am doing my best to believe in a future where we can all be safe. Where I can be safe. Where I can thrive again.

If you cannot help directly please share this link to any space you think might increase visibility.

I will post another update as soon as I'm able. I love you. Thank you. - Opal

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OLD:

I'm Opal.

I am a disabled, mentally ill, transgender woman with no income who needs to leave Utah and go where my human rights and access to medical care will be better protected. The federal government is likely to ban my medical care and end my access to hormone replacement therapy. I need estradiol or I will be forced into menopause. I need further medical treatment to treat my debilitating gender dysphoria. I found a way forward for me that addresses my suicidal ideation and depression yet I face having to go back to those things if I lose access to my medication and hope for my future.

The previous iterations of this GoFundMe were used to help me avoid eviction, pay bills, buy gasoline, and get the things I need to live in my car. Although I have been unable to prevent eviction for more than a month I won't have to live in my car until it's warmer. A kind stranger is letting me stay at their home for a while. I am now homeless but housed until it's warm so you don't have to worry that I will be living in my car in the winter.

I am still unemployed but have a few months more to organize and plan. Because of this, I have changed the direction of my fundraiser again and increased the GoFundMe to $14,000 to buy a van that runs and is in decent shape. This increase is on top of the current donations and should be enough for me to purchase a used van. A vehicle like a van will provide a living space with some dignity and space compared to the backseat and trunk of my sedan. I can have a bed platform, house a cassette toilet, and have privacy while caring for my medical needs. I have most of what I need to live on the road except the cassette toilet. The money previously earmarked for the toilet was used to rent a storage unit close to where I am sleeping and for the gasoline to make repeated trips to the storage unit with the few belongings I value; the heirlooms I can travel with and my tools so I can keep doing DIY wrenching to keep my car alive. I have sold all of the unneeded valuables that I could before leaving my apartment. I will finish selling what few things I couldn't that are now in storage.

This is not a van-life choice but a survival decision that will help me travel in the U.S. to wherever will better my odds at finding protections for my medical care and HRT. If you have a working van that fits these needs please let me know how much you want and I can adjust the GoFundMe goal accordingly.

I applied for all the state aid I am qualified to receive. I have food benefits and Medicaid. I have applied for SSDI as I am disabled however this takes a very long time and is usually denied by default requiring an attorney. Utah Community Action ran out of funding with no ETA on replenishment. I qualify for more housing aid now that I am homeless and will begin applying for subsidized housing on Monday the 30th. I am fighting with every stick in my arsenal. I will continue to follow up on all viable options and apply for positions even though my vocational rehabilitation case was closed due to discrimination around my disability and standing up for myself. The employment counselor directly went against my ask not to be deadnamed, suggested I go back in the closet to obtain employment after 4 years of being fully out, completely glossed over her discriminatory comments about my disability, said to me "You need more help than I can provide.", and closed my case. It was a derailing event but I am pressing on despite losing the only state aid to help me gain work. I must interview as a trans woman with both names and use my legal name wherever it is required or be duplicitous that I live as a woman 24/7. I am either employable as a trans woman or I am not.

It's clear to me now that the systemic and cultural discrimination here in Utah is likely to get much worse when the law changes and directly targets trans people more than it already does. I am currently unable to legally use the restrooms in the state buildings or face arrest or assault for simply needing to relieve myself. Going in the men's is even more hostile. Many people and politicians are pressing for more and worse for trans people because we are convenient political pawns who live our lives out and proud. We face murder and many states acquit murderers who use a "trans defense". This means that we can be murdered and the justice system will allow it because the murderer says we lied about who we are. Our overall LGBTQIA++ community faces mass murder by radicalized individuals and we get blamed for mass shootings by those who aren't trans.

It's a dire and ugly situation and I need you to be brave and not turn away. I need you to help me face these things and find a route through them to a life without fear of having our lives reduced, being murdered, or fleeing political persecution for just being alive as we are.

I realize I am one of millions who need your help, so please consider other more urgent and critical requests before mine. This is only fair and I hate being put ahead of others. So many have nothing and zero opportunities for making a better life outside of asking for help. At least I am alive and know people who want me to stay alive and no one is stepping over me on the street. I have a warm place to sleep for a while and I will continue fighting for myself and my trans friends. We need lives where we aren't political pawns and can live without constant harassment and threats from every direction.

If you cannot or do not want to help financially but are reading this, please help me by sharing the link freely and often. This is cost-free outside of the time it takes to click the button and post or copy the link in a new post.

I am sorry that I continue to need help . I wish I had more options. I wish anyone would hire me so I didn't need to do this and impose on strangers for a warm place to sleep. I need to leave Utah for my safety and access to medical care and don't know of any other way.

- Opal