Lazarus Letcher

Hi y'all I just got back home after an incredible and transformative time in Durham. I made lifelong friends and had so many breakthroughs. I feel so solid moving forward as a writer and an artist. Asking for help isn't my forte, and I'm always blown away by my community. Thank you to all of you who helped make this possible!!!

I was recently selected to travel to North Carolina for a writing workshop with one of my favorite writers and thinkers, Alexis Pauline Gumbs. I applied as an absolute moonshot, and I'm in disbelief about this opportunity to work on my ancestor writing project in a sacred container. I leave in just two weeks and am seeking some help to cover the $2500 tuition and travel expenses. For the past few months, I've been digging through the archives to find and map the path my ancestor Dempsey Spencer took on the Underground Railroad. Working on this project and writing about it on my Substack has absolutely fed my soul. Interrogating my ancestors' survival and brave flight for freedom feeds my soul as a Black trans person navigating the ripple effect of surviving a lynching. I can't wait to learn and grow in this community and to deepen this project. You can check out more of my work as a writer, musician, and educator at my website: www.lazarusletcher.com

For years, I've hoped to get a hysterectomy to alleviate pain and to affirm my gender. I was set to have this operation in the summer of 2023 when my life got completely derailed by a murder attempt in my home (you can read the story here). I dodged eight bullets fired from an AK-47 and am grateful for every day that I'm still here. The past two years have been filled with healing from PTSD from the shooting, over a dozen court dates where I had to face my attacker, and moving away from the home where I was attacked. I am so relieved and grateful to finally have a date for this essential medical procedure. After I began the process to receive this procedure as gender affirming care (usually a quicker way to receive it in my trans supportive state), my insurance rolled back covering trans healthcare (you can read an interview I did about this here) I am lucky enough to be on a new plan with the same provider and have been assured my surgery will now be covered. I am grateful for affirming insurance, supportive work, and incredible community -- and additional support is still very welcome. Funds will be used to cover co-pays, medications, food, support for those caring for me, healing modalities not covered by insurance, and additional bills that fall through the cracks. Surviving the shooting and trial taught me how incredible this community is. I am grateful for all the love and financial support that have carried me through the last two years, and I'm so excited to be at a place peaceful enough now to finally get the care I've needed for ages. You can read my articles and more of my work at my website