transgirl

(08-18-2017) Ari is Asking For Some Assistance 

To my tumblr, twitter, twitch, and personal website followers.. I am asking for your assistance. I have a potentially very narrow window of opportunity to complete a surgery this calendar year. Recent rumors say that the Trump Administration may attempt to repeal specific transgender coverage requirements of the ACA rather than attempting a full repeal.

My insurance only began covering this procedure just this calendar year because of the ACA. I have been doing all I can to prepare and save for it on my own with the goal of completing the surgery as soon as possible. My insurance just approved coverage, but I fear it will only truly happen if the procedure is completed before the end of 2017. My insurance may drop the inclusion of transgender health care as prior to 2017 it specifically called it out as an EXCLUSION. Thanks to my pre-approved insurance coverage (that may end after this year), I do not need to come up with as much money as many other transgender people need to raise for necessary surgeries.

I know I sit in a place of privilege when compared to many transgender people. I transitioned later in life and I already had a solid career established. I transitioned on the job and have been able to successfully integrate back into my original team. I am very grateful for where I find myself at this point. I have come so far in my transition and have been able to do so while simultaneously dealing with a separation where I financially supported two households, followed by a divorce. Due to the divorce, I had to file for bankruptcy as the money spent supporting two households, coupled with existing family debt and the legal costs of divorce finally destroyed my financial status. My credit is destroyed but is slowly being repaired through a bankruptcy repayment agreement.

With all of these anxiety inducing events, I still have managed to make it financially month to month and meet the financial needs of my kids and I. I have taken on side jobs to produce websites for small businesses for extra income, essentially working two jobs to make ends meet. I adjusted my transition plan, putting certain things on hold as I dealt with another family member’s medical costs. Somehow, at the end of each pay period, I have been able to pay the bills and keep my kids fed (they are living with me between 40 to 50% of each month) and meet my portion of their medical and school costs as needed.

While all of this has been going on, over the past nearly three years of my transition, I chose to become very public about it. I saw very early on how important some of my posts were to fellow transgender people out in the world. I made a decision to stay public and to promote advocacy for transgender people while allowing my life to be an example to the world that transgender people do successfully transition and can have lives that are just as happy and productive as any non-transgender person. Using Google Analytics, I can see that my website has been viewed in 98 countries around the world. The most popular pages are my transition timeline and 500 picture gender reveal pictorial. The goal of both my website and tumblr blog are to be able to tell my story and provide an example of what a transgender life really looks like. It is free from the troubled reporting and poor representation that the media often gives us.

Along with those sources, I have also contributed articles to the Huffington Post and have ideas for many more articles that I want to write. Those that have followed me for a long time have watched me come amazingly far. I receive messages of thanks and of encouragement each week. Some are thanking me for giving them an example to point their families to as they attempt to come out. Some are thanking me for showing them that you can transition late in life and be very successful with it, while maintaining a positive attitude even during horrible circumstances. Some reach out and need advice or to just talk to someone and I offer what I can.

This past year, I pushed myself to become more social (after many pre-transition years of letting friendships fall away due to my own self-hate) and I now have a great circle of friends who know and care about the real me.

My point is.. I am able to handle an aweful lot on my own and I have come very far. I have been through stress, pain, and hurt that is difficult to accurately describe and I had to go through it simply by choosing to no longer lie to the world about who I have always been. I am not discounting the occasional tight spots that my parents and other family members helped me through, but the truth is, I have had to do nearly all of this largely on my own.

However, due to the timeframe and my current financial situation. I am asking for those that I have helped and those who appreciate my story to think about donating a small amount to help me during this time. There are now nearly 11,000 of you following me on tumblr. I try to weed out the junk accounts and fetish sites that always harass us transgender women so I know that most of you are legitimate people that care about me and my story and find some benefit in following it.

If you can, please consider donating something small. If enough of you do it, the goal will be met. If the goal is met.. instead of sleep depriving myself with extra working hours and website jobs over the next two and a half months, I will be able to continue to focus on keeping my blog and transition website up to date, and on building the Twitch community that has started to form around my transgender advocacy driven channel. I will also be so very grateful for the removal of any additional stress as it does of course affect my health.

If you can do so without putting yourself in a financial bind, then please consider helping me beat the clock and get this surgery in this year. I chose YouCaring for the donation goal tool as I have used it to donate to other transgender people before and they recommend it.

I hope you all know that the point of my website, my tumblr blog, and my Twitch channel is not to “cash-in” (which is one reason there are no ads on my transition website despite the high-traffic) and that this is a legitimate request and need that I face. (Also, just as a side note if you see my blog post and wonder how I was able to recently travel to Seattle, well that was on free tickets provided by a family member with massive frequent flyer miles).

Also, I want to promise you all that I never intend to disappear. I plan to be out as transgender for the rest of my life and to continue this work. (I intend to add a condition of my will that renews my website domain as long as financially possible after the event of my death). I feel it is too important to do so, rather than to fade into living stealth once I reach a certain place in my transition (this is my choice, please know I fully respect those that feel they need to go stealth).

If you would prefer more detail on how this money would be used before donating, then please message me on tumblr or via my website. I hope you can understand why I would not want to place complete details online.

A simple explanation is the amount I am listing is both to cover part of the surgery itself, appointments, preparation work, and for related costs ocurring both before and after the surgery (recovery period).

Thank you for considering helping me achieve this goal in this narrow window. If you can’t help right now, please keep in mind that there are nearly 2 ½ months in which you can still help if your situation allows it. Thank you for reading this. It has not been easy to write and asking for money for myself is difficult.

If we can’t make this goal in this time frame, then I may still find a way to cover more of the cost. If it does not happen this year, then know I will make it to this surgery eventually even if my insurance coverage for it gets pulled. Somehow, some way.. it will eventually happen, nothing can stop me unless I let it.

If my blog, website, or twitch channel has helped you in the past or if we have chatted and I was of help to you, please consider replying to this message with a brief note so that people just discovering my blog will see that I am not making this stuff up 🙂

Please re-blog and share.

-Ari

If you can donate toward this goal, please do so here (edit-fixed the link): http://www.youcaring.com/helparianaout

Short link for tweets: http://bit.ly/2wpfFAR

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Website Reach Data: 98 countries and counting:

http://arianadanielle.com/the-importance-of-representation/

Main Transition Website Link: 

http://arianadanielle.com

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My goal in sharing my transition is to represent transgender people in the positive light that we all deserve. Re-blogs are always okay if they are for this purpose, but if you are a fetish blog or fetish website then I want nothing to do with you and you do not have my permission to use my images.

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My Twitch Channel: http://twitch.tv/maidenariana

Please Re-blog! Also, here is a link to a full-size version of the image in this post http://arianadanielle.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/compilation.jpg