Hello lovelies, we are trying to raise funds to help relocate my partner Nikki from Indianapolis, USA to Liverpool, UK so they can escape the endless waves of anti-trans legislation restricting their life, and so we can finally close the distance between us to build a life together.

We’ve been close friends for over 12 years and have been together in a relationship for over a year and a half. We’ve cared for each other through so many different stages of life and our connection has grown into a wonderfully multifaceted, deeply spiritual companionship. This a choice we thought about carefully, seriously, and with conviction in our hearts that this is what we both need and want.

Both of us are transgender, gender queer, and ride the ADHD train through it's ups and downs. We are trying to build a life together in a world that makes living harder for trans people every day, and the situation in the USA has become especially frightening for anyone with intersectional identities like ours. With Indianapolis recently banning gender changes on driver's licenses, abuses of power by border control against marginalized communities, as well as gender-affirming care rapidly being restricted and banned across many states, it is clear the USA is unsafe for either of us to live in at this time. That reality weighs heavily on us, and Nikki being Black and trans only makes life even harder in a system designed to oppress them from every possible angle. It affects her safety, work, mental wellbeing, and the basic feeling of being able to navigate through the world without constantly bracing for the possibility harm just because of her identity.

Both of us have experienced the struggle. We know what it means to live frugally (and we still do!), without family money to fall back on, and know how it feels to fight for any shred of stability. For trans folks, it is immensely difficult to gain ground in an already competitive corporate world that so often treats our professional integration with disdain. Closing the gap between us is something we wish for earnestly, but it is not something we can fund on our own because society puts us at such a disadvantage to achieve all this by ourselves.

This is why we are reluctantly asking you for help.

We hope to ultimately raise money incrementally to make the move possible.

£6543 of that money will go directly toward fully funding this move in the following order:

Even just reaching one of these goals will be a huge milestone that allows us to fully begin this process to reuniting.

Beyond this, the remaining £1,500 will be used for clearing any lingering debt on Nikki's car loan after selling her car so this move can happen without that debt tying her back to the USA or negatively impacting her visa application. Nikki has experienced consistent misfortune, whether from poorly maintained local infrastructure damaging the wheels, to a hit n' run driver crashing into her previous car. This final stretch of funding will allow us to pursue living together safely and also begin this next chapter confidently.

Now although the UK isn't perfect for trans people (few places are, if anywhere), Liverpool is well known for being a welcoming and reasonably safe place for transgender people, with it's own local gender care clinic and trans-allied doctors across the region confident in prescribing bridging hormones and preliminary support. This will give Nikki the opportunity to finally begin pursuing gender-care without fear of persecution or the immense, unending financial pressures of the American healthcare system weighing down on them for even the most basic healthcare.

Comparatively, increasingly aggressive border checks in the USA from both TSA and ICE, especially now ICE is taking over from TSA, puts Tara at risk of being rejected at the border every time she visits the USA, or potentially detained for an indefinite amount of time with no legal protections just for being transgender. We want a home. We want stability. But to do this we need the simple chance to be together without an ocean, immigration costs, border-check fears, time-zones and anxiety standing in the middle of our lives for years to come.

But more than anything, this fundraiser is about us both finally being able to live in the same place with less daily fear, and build a life that is shaped by the love we feel for each other.

If you are able to donate at all, thank you so much from the bottom of both of our hearts. Truly. If you cannot donate, don't worry, sharing this page would still mean the absolute world to us. Every contribution, no matter the size or reach, gets us closer to closing this damned distance that hurts us every single day and continues to drain our finances. But most of all one step closer to finally starting this new chapter of our lives that currently remains closed to us.