Ryannahs Survival Fund

$10,000 survival funds

My name is Ryannah and I am a trans woman of color!! I created this to help me raise funds for survival. As many of you know living my truth as a transgender woman comes with its own obstacles but the reality is is that I am constantly in survival mode. The systems have been built to work against me and it has been difficult on top of many other things to be able to live a sustainable life these last couple years. I would love to share my story with each of you and hopes to help give a better understanding of who I am and what I stand for and why i need each of your help.

I am originally from American Samoa part of the Polynesian islands. At A young age I was adopted and he was raised in Kaysville Utah by my adopted parents and 26 siblings!! As many people raised in Utah I was brought up under the church specifically the LDS church! Exploring my identity growing up was very difficult for me because my family had already created this image of what I was and who I was to be in my future. I was to get married in the temple and go on LDS mission, raise a family!! That was unfortunately not my truth. Growing up I was so afraid to be myself remember leaving my house to go to school wearing boys clothes and when I got on the bus I had other clothing in my backpack so that I can feel more comfortable at school. I always knew that I was a woman just born in the wrong physical body. My life took a really big turn when I was about 7 my parents keep up parental rights and I was turned over to states custody where I spent age 7 to 15 institutionalized. I was in foster care group homes treatment centers and anywhere that would take me including the Utah State Hospital. I spent many years experience in conversion therapy under a blanket. My dad believe that I had an illness so that my sexuality could be healed so I was sent away.

When I was 15 I was put into an organization called Millcreek youth center in Ogden, Utah Which is a juvenile program for young people that don’t have anywhere else to go. While being housed here I was sexually assaulted and abused and raped by three men. After reporting this to my counselor the only advice she gave me was that if this ever happens again that I need to use self-defense. A few weeks later it happened again and all I remember is having so much anger and rage from my family abandoning me and having a piece of me being taken away without my consent and he just started screaming and punching. When staff intervened and because I didn’t stop when the staff said so ,when the police reviewed the cameras They decided because I did not stop when I was told to it was no longer self-defense but it was now considered an assault.

At age 15 I was charged with a fourth-degree felony and I was transferred to the adult jail. I was house in the men’s section and one sentence two years. During my time in jail I was raped 12 times ( 11 filed under PREA- Prison Rape Inmate Act- and 1 case dismissed) , I was shanked on my right left had to get 27 stitches. I attempted to commit suicide many times because I felt like there was nothing more to live for and nobody to care.

After getting out of jail I moved to Oregon to meet my biological family for the first time and while I was there I was really expecting to get a lot of my questions answered because I didn’t know who my family was. But it was not the experience I hoped for. A few weeks after meeting them we had gone to Tacoma Washington to attend a church event and while we were there to my biological brothers were drunk outside and ended up beating me up. When my mom tried to intervene my mom had an exciting attack and I ran. At that time my brothers to the police officers that I attacked my mom. Which is not true and I was so scared because I didn’t know anybody so remember calling the police after running and telling them where it was and when the police came to find me I admitted to them that I did fight back with my brothers original hurt my mom and then I took full accountability for assaulting my brothers. I was arrested on the spot I spent the most crucial 21 days in jail in a state that I knew nobody and I was so scared and alone.

After I got released from jail it was my mom that was there to pick me up and take me back to Oregon! It was really hard for me because my brothers were crying when I got there and wanted to apologize for doing what they did to me I forgave them but I knew that it was not going to be safe to live with them moving forward so I ended up staying in a shelter. At this time he knew nothing about Portland I just knew that I needed services. At the time I qualified for youth services and received case management from a program called OUTSIDE IN. Within a few weeks I qualified for housing and I got a job working at another youth shelter as a cook. After living in a shelter for a few years I was couch surfing and working at an organization called Basic Rights Oregon as a transgender activist. I was very privileged to have helped pass transgender health coverage for the state of Oregon and was a big win and an accomplishment for me. After a while I moved to Seattle Washington where I had the privilege to work for an organization called the gender justice league as the queer and trans people of color activist. I was able to have difficult conversations with our community around accountability and To help create safe spaces for our communities is the color to come together. I was able to help facilitate conversations at the University of Washington Seattle with her medical students I have created perform the new anti-discrimination and trans trainings for Seattle Police Department, I was able to facilitate on many occasions anti-discrimination trainings and also conversations around racism privilege and class. My work became really respected and I was given opportunities to travel the world to attend conferences and workshops to continue the education around trans work and to be able to connect with other phenomenal and amazing leaders across the globe.

Unfortunately I was fired from the Gender Justice league after continuous accountability towards the executive director and staff around tokenizing our communities of colors experiences and using funds from grants I was given that was specific to QTPOC work.

After many months of disappearing I was given an opportunity to work for a homeless youth shelter in Seattle Washington called new horizons! I fell in love with the work and I became a coordinator for the nest shelter which is her independent living shelter on the top floor. I have the privilege and honor to work with 12 youth and helping them find themselves and creating stability so that way they can reunite back into society and a part of our communities. I love to my job I was working overnight shifts which is 12 hours and on top of that was working overtime sometimes 17 to 20 hours a day.

In 2019 I took a vacation for my birthday and he went to Los Angeles with two of my favorite people and when I came back I went back to work but I was constantly working and it was not taking time for self-care. I was not sleeping or eating I was constantly at work.

Unfortunately my exhaustion led to having a heart attack and I was hospitalized for nine months in 2019. I was in a coma and on life-support for two months and for the grace of God I woke up. My recovery these last two years has been very difficult. I got a really bad bedsore because the nurse on shift in the ER at Saint Joseph’s medical center in Tacoma Washington refuse to clean me up from the urine after being on a water pill. I received horrible service but when I woke up my left leg was paralyzed I had no muscle from laying in a hospital bed for so long. I had to learn to walk again and that was a very difficult thing and I was very discouraged. I have to learn to live again and re-create my life. I was put into a retirement home to work with a physical therapist but I was not receiving the things that I needed and my insurance canceled and the retirement home kicked me out. At this time I was still in a wheelchair and I could not walk and a friend of mine help me get a hotel for two months which was very difficult doing things by myself and the fear of possibly something happening to me and nobody finding me. On Valentine’s Day 2020 I made the decision to call my parents and ask him if I could come to Utah to heal which was a difficult thing for me to do but I knew that I had no other options because nobody else would help me and I couldn’t stay at a place where there a lot of stairs. I came to Utah on Valentine’s Day and I have been here ever since. Well I have been here I have been reliving the trauma and pain that I had experience in Utah on top of that I’ve had many heart operations and I’ve been in the ICU on many occasions. Some days I have energy and some days I don’t I am currently renting a room from my family and it has become very difficult because often times my family likes to use my housing as a token to get the things that they want her to get their way and I’m always feeling like I’m walking on ice. I am constantly trying to survive by paying my bills and providing myself with food and paying for my co-pays for the medications.

I’m tired at at this time I just ask my community to come together to help me find some peace and finally get some rest.

Every dollar counts and every Dollar is a blessing and I am beyond thankful. Please consider making a donation and helping me reach my goal so I know that I don’t have to worry or stress about surviving my having a roof over my head or food on my table or my heart medications. Thank you