(AP) Dozens of transgender people in Florida have turned to crowdfunding appeals to help them leave the state after the passage of new legislation that targets the LGBTQ+ community, including a law that curtails access to gender-affirming care for adults and bans it for minors.
For Sage Chelf, the decision to leave hardly felt like a choice, but she didn’t have the funds to cover a move. The 30-year-old trans woman, who lives in the Orlando area, was nearly out of one medication when she found out the clinic that had been prescribing her hormone therapy was ending all treatment for trans patients.
“I don’t want to go back to the person that I was forced to be at the time,” Chelf said, of the years before she transitioned in 2021. “It was a very dark time in my life. I would rather just not be alive, I guess, than have to go back to living not trans.”
Chelf was among dozens who made an appeal for donations online, saying they needed help to leave Florida in anticipation of or in reaction to a law that took effect May 17. In addition to banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, the law places new restrictions on adults seeking treatment.
The number of people seeking help online is a fraction of the 94,900 transgender adults estimated to live in Florida by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, which looked at state-level, population-based surveys. Many, if not most, will stay.
Not all trans people seek medical interventions. But for those who do, losing access to hormone therapy, or interrupting other care, can be devastating for their mental health. Over time, they can lose some of the sex characteristics generated by the hormones.
Chelf, who works as a leasing agent in Orlando, figured she would need $2,500 to cover the cost of moving and finding a new job. She was stunned to raise more than $3,000 online in less than two weeks.
“I was under the impression that no one’s going to actually donate, people are going to think I’m just trying to like, get free money,” she said.
People have given more than $200,000 since January to fundraisers on GoFundMe started by trans people seeking to leave Florida, according to data from the platform. Jalen Drummond, GoFundMe’s director of public affairs, said the online fundraising platform saw a 39% increase from April to May in the number of fundraisers created to help trans people leave the state because of the changing laws.
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Chelf hopes to move to Illinois and move in with her girlfriend. The donations to her GoFundMe have restored her faith in humanity.
“I think everyone’s aware of how dire the situation actually is,” she said.
