We've gained many new friends, acquaintances, associates, & followers since we have been re-housed, there are several of you that do not know our backstory. So, thought I would take this opportunity to give you an overview of what we've triumphed through the last five years since coming out...
2014 When we came out we lived in our home state of Mississippi. Katherine worked in horticulture & landscape design then as a Crew Leader. I was post-partum from having a high-risk pregnancy resulting in c-section with our youngest child, so was not working at the time. After coming out, Kat was attacked & threatened at work by another employee, assigned to a different crew. Two crews were working together on one job site, when this person approached her with a shovel, assaulted them, & threatened their life if they were to ever be seen at work again. Kat was extremely fearful about returning to work after this incident. Which was reported to the supervisor (a family friend) who actually said "Well this is Mississippi, what did you expect?". There was no indication of support, or even consequences for the co-worker's attack on Kat. Over the next few days we searched high & low for employment to substitute going back to work in a blatantly dangerous situation, besides online stuff, nothing was available for Kat at that time. Slowly our bills fell behind, our electricity was shut off, human services came out to give an inspection, due to the absence of power, we could have lost our children at this point, but thankfully a neighbor was keeping them for us, while we were busy searching for assistance programs, reaching out to churches, and applying for jobs. When 5 different local places (churches included) denied us assistance with our rent & electricity, we turned to family & friends to ask for help to keep our place until we could acquire employment again *keep in mind rent is super cheap in MS* none of which could/would help. Many of them disowned us at this point. When it seemed all hope of keeping our townhouse was failing us, we made the decision to head to a more transgender affirming area of the country. It honestly felt like being refugees. When we made it into Denver, we felt invigorated, excited for a new start in a new place. We hit the ground running even before we made the 2,000 mile journey to Colorado, by listing out housekeeping & yard services on Craigslist, we had several gigs lined up for the week after our arrival. For an entire year we traveled around Colorado, doing odd jobs, working at a hotel, a casino, and applying to every possible housing program available. After the year, we decided there just wasn't anything that was going to come from staying in Colorado. Since we had bought a camper van during our stay there, we were more equipped to go on the road to someplace new. 2015 After 6 weeks in Seattle, we realized it was just too wet there, all of our cold weather gear was ruined from mildew, most of our important legal documents like birth certificates were wet/moldy. We moved onto Portland, which is where we stayed & worked for a year. 2016 Kat worked full-time volunteer for Trans Lifeline, & I worked for a local call center. Again applying for many services, and housing programs, to no avail. After the year, we moved on to the Bay Area, CA. 2017 Being traumatized by police officers, harassed while sleeping in the middle of the night, having others see us as degenerates, lazy, worthless, not-worthy, less than for an entire 3 years, pretty much wherever we went was awful, not only due to being homeless, but also worse for being transgender. After 3 years of traveling to find an affordable place to start over, we moved to Nevada, where we were housed within 2 days of coming here. And now, this month marked TWO YEARS re-housed. We've worked hard to get where we are, and we have a lot more work to do to get where we want to be, but we are eternally grateful for the ones that showed they were/are supportive, understanding, and compassionate - - the ones that stuck by us through even coming out as transgender, and homelessness & the ones that have come into our lives since then too!
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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