Donation protected
Hi, my name is Yves de Shon. I am a Black Trans/Non-Binary Woman living in the South who desperately needs help medically transitioning, both inside and out. I am asking for help with paying for my hormone replacement therapy, electrolysis (hair removal), and gender-affirming surgeries (including facial feminization surgeries, body feminization and contouring, post-op medical aftercare for recovery, and travel). I urgently need your help to *begin* my life as I truly cannot fathom living without it. I am writing this from a place of complete transparency and vulnerability. 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 because of the way I look. Once I discovered feminizing filters on Snapchat, it made it a lot easier for me to post photos of myself online, but that came with its own pitfalls. The attacks still come, but now they mostly consist of people questioning my identity, my gender, my race, my authenticity on every level and demanding that I show them the real me. Filtered photos are who I feel like but not who I am yet; so even when people compliment them, I know deep inside that they’re not really talking about ME, and it hurts. Imagine something so casual as snapping a photograph and sharing it on social media being so triggering. I look 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 hoping that this will help me escape the confines of my body and my home and get me on the path to happiness. 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 $50K. 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
Donate
Organizer and beneficiary
YVES DE SHON
Organizer
Virginia Beach, VA
TREMAYNE BEW
Beneficiary
