Please Help Yves: Revision Surgeries Needed ASAP

UPDATE: I now have the revision surgery for my face scheduled for May of 2024. In the short term, I am still in need of travel and lodging as my doctor is in Minnesota. In the meantime, I also need assistance in keeping up with rent and bills. (And then of course come a long-term, I still have revisions to my body that are needed as well.) If anyone can help, I would truly appreciate it. Thank you.

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Hi, my name is Yves de Shon. I am a Black Trans Woman who needs help moving out of the South in order to live in a freer, safer, and more accepting environment with a larger community and more resources for our community. I am urgently asking for help with paying for several months rent- possibly up to a year as I will still need time to recover from surgeries and other procedures-, any security deposits and fees that may apply, and then other expenses related to the logistics of moving (including fuel, moving trucks, etc.) I urgently need your help to *begin* my life as I truly cannot fathom living in my current state for much longer. I am writing this from a place of complete transparency and vulnerability. This is an emergency request as my current living situation will not be safe once I begin multiple gender-affirming surgeries in February 2022, and previous arrangements have suddenly fallen through.

 

Full Disclosure: I have done a past fundraiser to help cover the costs of my actual transitioning- hormones, therapy, surgeries, etc. This particular one is for moving and surviving in a better area for Black Trans women, especially while healing from these risky but necessary procedures.

 

Gender dysphoria is draining, debilitating, exhausting. Little things- like daily need to shave my face- eat away at me and expend all the energy I need for the day. I even broke down trying to muster up the courage to attach this photo because it is unfiltered. I have always faced a barrage of attacks online and in real life because of the way I look. I reflect back at my life in the past and even in the present and realize how heavily this has weighed on me- how many opportunities I’ve missed and continue to miss because I’m just too drained of energy to move. Every day, I fight with myself, with my body, to the point where I barely have any energy left to do anything else, like LIVE. The last decade of my life has been marked by growth and change both good- in terms of my continuous learning- and bad- in terms of developing in a body that becomes increasingly foreign to me. I’ve become more and more isolated as my body and soul continue to diverge. I rarely leave my room, let alone my house, and I fear for my life everyday. I just want to live. I never got to be a child. For as long as I have existed, the world was dead set on beating my pink spirit black and blue. By the time I was 8 years old, I had already planned my suicide. I have lived my entire life in the South, from Georgia to Virginia, and I have never felt safe or like myself anywhere- not out in public, not at school, not at work, not at home, and not even in my own body, within myself. I do not recall a time where I have ever been truly happy, but I am finally going through the transition process to help alleviate as much of this as possible. Black Trans Lives Matter: I’ve seen and come to appreciate the way that people have increasingly come to support us in the wake of tragedy, but we need your love and support in life even more. It is hard enough to survive like this, let alone truly LIVE. Though inadequate insurance and financial strain have forced me to forgo transitioning for years and years, I have been fortunate enough to develop something of an online platform on social media which I have used to learn, to educate and help people, and to make lifelong connections with many people who I have grown to love and care for deeply. My ultimate goal is to raise $25K. So again, if you’ve ever learned anything from me, if you’ve gotten to know me, if I’ve impacted your life in any way, and even if you are a stranger, I am desperately asking for your help right now.

 

Thank you again for everything,

Yves