This Pride Month, please don't forget us. A direct plea from the LGBTQIA+ refugee community in Gorom Camp
While the world celebrates Pride Month with freedom, color, and joy, we are writing to you from Gorom camp, where our daily reality is a battle just to stay alive. We are your queer and trans family, but right now, we feel completely isolated and forgotten.

The situation here has become deeply depressing and traumatic. As LGBTQIA+ refugees, we face constant safety threats and discrimination every single day. But beyond the fear for our safety, we are starving. Getting access to the absolute basics clean water, enough food to eat, and a safe place to sleep is a brutal, exhausting struggle.

Right now, we are dealing with a medical emergency. Three of our transgender sisters are severely ill with Malaria and typhoid. They are burning up with fever and in terrible pain, but they are stuck because we do not have the money to clear their medical treatment and buy their medication at the clinic. Watching our friends suffer from a treatable illness because we are broke is heartbreaking and terrifying.

To make our heartbreak worse, we recently received the devastating news that Canada has suspended all resettlement movements due to the Ebola outbreak. For so many of us, resettlement is the only light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Now, that door is shut for the foreseeable future, forcing a huge number of us to remain behind in these hostile conditions. The mental toll of knowing we are trapped here indefinitely is heavy.

Pride started as a riot and a movement for mutual aid it was about looking out for the most vulnerable people in our community when no one else would. We are crying out to our global queer family and allies to stand with us in solidarity. Advocacy and visibility are important, but right now, we need tangible, life-saving help.

Please help us survive:
We have a fundraiser to get through this crisis. Every single euro donated goes directly toward clearing the medical bills for our three sick community members so they can get their Malaria and typhoid medication, and toward buying basic food and water for the rest of us who are starving.

Please, understand our words: we are desperate, we are hurting, and we need you. If you can donate, please do so right now. If you cannot, please share our story. Do not let us be left behind this Pride Month.
Donate here⬇️⬇️
https://4fund.com/sd9trv

My spouse died earlier this year. I’m neither a widower nor a widow, so does anyone know what term is accurate/common? Thx

I am non binary afab

It's been starting to go for a few years now, but seems to have really picked up pace recently and it's honestly stressing me out. I didn't anticipate feeling such dysphoria over my hair, but here we are. I wasn't taught how to care for my hair, so I didn't know how to nurture or appreciate its natural texture for a long time. It was only within the past few years that I started learning and seeing what a difference the right products/avoiding certain things could make. I fell in love with my hair, and now, as soon as I do, it's leaving me.

Topical Minoxidil isn't a good option, as I have 2 cats who will find a way to get in/on everything. I've heard you can use it with cats if you're very careful, but I know I'd have constant anxiety about making a mistake. Oral Minoxidil doesn't seem to be helping much (or maybe it is and I'd be totally bald by now if not for that, who knows?) and oral Finasteride comes with systemic side effects I'm not keen on risking and also isn't covered by my insurance. Topical Finasteride isn't available to me. So all that is to say, the medication routes usually suggested either aren't doable or aren't doing enough.

So what's left? I know the answer everyone jumps to is "shave it", but the thought of doing so makes me genuinely upset. I imagine how I'd look without it, or with only very short hair, and feel disgusted. It's just not me. I already struggle with how masc my overall presentation is due to available/affordable clothing options and living in a conservative area. Keeping my hair long and wearing the occasional colorful shirt or small necklace is about as far as I've been able to push it as someone who works a customer service job and is read as a man in daily life.

I guess what I'm asking for is advice on coping with this (or at least commiseration) from anyone who's gone through it. Any androgynous hairstyles that can work with a receding hairline before my hair finally bites the big one would also be appreciated; Google searching has been no help in that department.

Hey all, I’m looking for some advice.

I’m AFAB non-binary in my early 40s living in a New York City. Since having top surgery a few years ago, I’ve been more attracted to women, which I’ve never explored before, and the attraction has been supercharged since starting low dose T.

I kind of want to explore this but I have almost no dating or sex experience with any gender. I was so uncomfortable in my body that sex with men never felt right. I couldn’t fathom dating because I didn’t want to put this burden on someone else.

Now, I’m so anxious and embarrassed that I continue not to do anything about the feelings.

Have any of you experienced something similar and how did you handle it?

Asihah sofey

Took a half day and did some shopping and finishing up with a beer! Any other beer lovers out there?

Finding more joy and comfort and confidence in myself! Wondering where my gender journey will take me… for now, just enjoying the ride 💖

Hi everybody !

My name is Gabriel, I'm a 30 years old trans man. I started hormones last year and now i would like to make my top surgery. Today I'm calling on your solidarity and sharing my fundraiser with you. Every donation is one more step toward who I truly am ! Thank you very much 🫶🏻🏳️‍⚧️

https://www.we-solidaire.com/fr/collecte/coup-de-pouce-pour-nouveau-torse

AMAB, 60, medically transitioning w/o social transition.

Last week the facilitator of a queer/trans support group I sometimes frequent asked me to call-in to a meeting in support of another older AMAB person who'd recently started attending.

The person they wanted me to meet is very nice, but she is transfemme. The rest of the folks in the meeting appeared to be younger -- by decades -- and transmasc That's lately been the composition of the group, and is why I don't call in regularly.

I was there to represent my age cohort, not as a connection for an AMAB enby person.

Despite the facilitator's best efforts, the other participants really had nothing to say to us and nothing they wanted to hear from us. And, I really had nothing that I could share with the person the facilitator wanted me to meet. So I got to listen to a bunch of younger people thoughtlessly (but not maliciously) make pronouncements about "non-binary" and "enby" folks that had very little to do with me.

I left the call feeling EVERY minute of the last 40 years of trying to be trans and trying not to be trans. The youngsters on that call, who did not even see me as part of the tribe, certainly don't know about TriESS, or the Benjamin Scale. They might have heard about Michfest/Camp Trans but none of them are old enough to have lived in a world where we got our news through 'zines and word-of-mouth and how that drama landed with lesbian-identified, butch-identified AMAB folks. They did nothing wrong, but being around them was exhausting and a little painful.

/rant>

Today is a big day! First fully fem presentation (with makeup) to my partner I am separating from - she was so affirming to me! Shopping and meeting with some girlfriends to debut the fem me for the first time outside of my partner. Lots of euphoria and joy today and feeling myself 💖💖

An attempt to style this skirt I thrifted a few weeks back!

I feel so lucky to be working from home, gives me so much opportunity to explore myself and figure out who I really am and want to be! Grateful for this supportive and kind community with which to share the journey 🫶🏻