youscaretheconflictsoutofme: ...

17th October 2012

youscaretheconflictsoutofme:

This is my partner and I. We have been together for four years, travelled halfway across the world to be together two times (first me, then her), spent thousands of dollars, but because of the Australian law we are unable to get legally married (I am a trans man, but legally female). As such, we are only entitled to an unmarried partner visa. If we were able to be legally married, we could apply in Australia for $900, but because of homophobic laws we have to pay either $2000 to apply off-shore or $3000 to apply on-shore.

We currently live in the UK. We moved here to make up the 12 month living together requirement (which can be waived now if you live in one of the states with a relationship register, but wasn’t negotiable a few years ago) and we now have lived together for over two years. Lauren is here on a limited visa which expires in November. I have been working for these two years to save money to apply for this visa, but because of incredibly low wages (most jobs are minimum wage) in the UK coupled with a very high cost of living, the majority of these two years has been spent trying to choose between rent and food.

We now live with abusive people to save on rent (and to be able to afford to eat), but it’s still not enough. I’ve been working hard every day - waking up for work at 5:45am and not getting home until 7pm - but it’s not enough. I’ve tried to get better paying jobs but they’re just not out there. Lauren is unable to work due to severe physical and mental health issues, which remain untreated because the NHS simply does not care.

I want to take her home so she can get the care she needs, so we can leave this abusive environment (if we stay here, we will have no choice but to live here literally forever because we won’t be able to afford rent), and so we can both live a decent quality of life.

We have everything stacked against us, low-paying job, health problems, expensive visa. I am at a loss.

After all this time, we have minimal savings. We cannot even afford the flights to Australia at this point. We allow ourselves to spend £20 on food every week, and Lauren skips meals to help us save.

Please, if you can spare even a few cents, we would be incredibly grateful. If you don’t want to donate, we would very much appreciate a reblog/signal boost.

- Tom M.

So my mother just spent 25 minutes (the clock was behind her) hurling abuse at me and Lauren about my transsexualism, shouting at me for taking testosterone and telling me I was hurting her through being transsexual and then accusing me of being aggressive when I tried, in a calm tone, to explain that I had to take hormones to save my own life. She then shouted at Lauren for defending me and brought her to tears.

We really need to get out of here quick, and of course we appreciate what we have already been given (often by complete strangers!), but I’m reblogging this again in the hopes that someone can help us out more or reblog this post. It would mean so much. We are hopeless right now.