#CUSTOMERS STOP MISGENDERING ME CHALLENGE

[steampunk-llama]

I *need* to look more visibly queer (or specifically, more visibly trans) at work holy shit

[astra-galaxie]

“I am! And you’re Adalet and Fili from the Bureau! My son’s told me all about your adventures!” - Milan Archer-Adams

Biographical information

Full Name: Milan Archer-Adams

Nickname(s): Mickey

Gender: Transgender (female to male)

Sexuality: Dеmiѕехual

Status: Alive

Age: 51 (season 3)

Birth: 1965

Race: Human

Nationality: Dutch-American

Origin: Los Angeles, USA

Residence: Los Angeles, USA

Profession(s): Voice Actor

Family:

Jack Archer-Adams (son)

Giselle Archer-Adams (wife)

Lance Archer (father) (deceased)

Maaike Archer (mother) (incarcerated)

Affiliation(s): The Astraea Galaxie Company

Profile

Height: 5'7"

Age: 51 (season 3)

Weight: 156lbs

Eyes: brown

Blood: A+

Milan is his son’s height but much more slender than Jack, with soft stubble on his jaw and brown eyes. Jack and his father also have similar haircuts, though Milan's hair is a darker brown with graying sides. He wears a black shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and tucked into dark jeans, a dark red binder, red suspenders, and black sneakers with yellow laces. He also has a small black leather backpack with rounded mouse ears and a red pouch on the front featuring two white circles.

As per his suspect appearance in Call Me, Kill Me, it is known that Milan knows electronics, has watched The Little Mermaid and has visited Galaxieland. In this suspect appearance, Milan had a bruise beside his left eye.

Synopsis

Milan is the father of Jack Archer and appears as a suspect in his father's murder.

He grew up in LA with his father, Lance and mother, Maaike. His father was one of the most famous detectives in the LAPD and was known for taking on the most challenging cases. His mother was a flight attendant who travelled the world, bringing back souvenirs for her son from wherever she visited.

As a child, Milan's life was normal. He went to school, hung out with his friends, and did the things he loved to do. But his life changed when his mother returned to work full-time. Lance became short-tempered and violent towards Milan when Maaike wasn't around to keep him calm and happy. Being alone in the house with his father was like living with a ticking bomb for Milan; he never knew when Lance would blow up or what would cause him to receive a beating.

But life wasn’t always bad for Milan. When he went to university, he met Giselle Adams. The two felt an instant connection but still took their new relationship slow. It was also around this time that Milan was questioning his gender and sexuality, something he learned Giselle was going through, too. Together, they helped discover who they really were and supported each other’s transitions.

Since Giselle was older by a few years, she graduated first and joined the Navy. While deployed on missions, she always wrote to Milan, and he was her first stop every time she returned for a break. Milan always looked forward to Giselle’s visits and made sure to have her favourite meal and dessert ready for her no matter the time she arrived. Though sometimes he would be asleep on the couch with the food gone cold… Giselle always thought those were the sweetest welcomes.

One night, while Giselle was away on deployment, Milan was invited by some friends to a local bar for drinks. He had been having a good time hanging out with his friends until a man approached him at the bar. The guy reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, two things Milan found appalling as it reminded him of his father. The guy kept misgendering him and insisting he would give Milan a night he would never forget. Milan kept telling the guy that he wasn’t interested, that he wasn’t single, and to leave him alone, but the guy was persistent. Eventually, the bar owner kicked the pervert out for harassing their customers, and Milan finally got some peace.

But his peace wouldn't last long. He was served a new drink by a bartender who, unknown to Milan, was a friend of the pervert. The bartender spiked the drink, and Milan slowly felt its effects setting in. He thought he was just getting sick, so he told his friends that he was going to get some fresh air. As he exited the bar, he was immediately attacked and dragged into an alleyway behind the building. Due to the drugs in his system, Milan was helpless to fight back as his attacker ripped his clothes off and violated him in the most intimate way.

After his rapist had finished and left him in the alley cold, broken and crying, Milan was found by his friends several minutes later. They called an ambulance, and he was rushed to the hospital, where he was given a rape kit and treatment for his injuries. Later, he was interviewed by a detective, who was also a close friend of his father, about the attack for the police report. Milan trusted the man and his father to find his rapist but was shocked when he went to the police station a few weeks later after not hearing any updates and discovered his case had never been filed. The case number he had been given was for an old robbery, and the evidence from his attack, such as his clothes and rape kit, had been destroyed.

When he confronted his father about the destroyed evidence and false case report number, Lance brushed him off and said that the attack would damage his career. He didn’t care that his son had been raped; in fact, he tried to place the blame on Milan, claiming he must have consented and simply regretted it afterwards and was calling rape so that people would pity him. Milan couldn't believe his father would think so low of him; he would never cheat on Giselle, least of all with a drunk, transphobic pervert! The bruises and pain he felt when he woke up in the hospital were proof of that!

But with the evidence destroyed, there was nothing Milan could do to prove the rape, least of all catch his attacker. He fell into a depression and turned into a shut-in, refusing to leave his home or talk to anyone. The only people he allowed to get close to him were his mother and girlfriend. He was eventually convinced to start seeing a therapist, but around the same time, he found himself getting sick in the mornings and throwing up. Certain smells made him nauseous, and his body felt strange… When he told his mother about his symptoms, Maakie suggested as gently as she could that he take a pregnancy test.

The idea of being impregnated by his rapist terrified Milan, and his fears became a reality when he saw a pink plus sign on the test. He didn’t know what to do. Did he keep the baby, or did he get an abortion? His mother and Giselle promised to support him with whatever he decided, but the choice wasn't easy for him to make. But he started to think clearer when his father insisted he get an abortion because “my family doesn't need a bastard in it.”

Milan was crushed that Lance saw the baby, an innocent unborn baby, as nothing more than a bastard and something that needed to be destroyed. So he stopped looking at the baby as his rapist’s and started thinking of it as his baby and only his baby. And that was when he decided that he wanted to keep his baby. Milan knew it wouldn't be easy, but he was going to do it. The pregnancy was hard, and the labour was even harder, almost resulting in an emergency c-section, but it was worth it to hear his son’s first cries as the nurse placed Jack on his chest.

Life started to get better for Milan after Jack came along. He and Giselle moved into a new home near his parent’s house since Maaike begged them to stay close so she could help with Jack. He got a job as a voice actor for The Astraea Galaxie Company and became one of their top actors in record time. Later, a few years after Jack started school, Milan and Giselle decided they were ready to get married, and she then officially adopted the boy as her son.

On the recommendation of his therapist, Milan wrote letters to Jack over the years about anything and everything he could. He wrote about Jack’s milestones, achievements, and every moment Milan witnessed him growing up. He kept the letters in a journal, intending to give them to his son after he graduated from university and started his first job, but Milan struggled to part with the letters. So he continued adding to them and waited until the right time to give them to Jack.

He was proud and scared when Jack told him that the Bureau wanted to recruit him. Milan knew how dangerous being a secret agent was, with Giselle being an NCIS agent herself, but he would never hold Jack back from his dreams. So he helped his son pack up for his move to England after Jack was accepted into the Bureau and watched the plane fly away, taking the young man towards his newest adventure away from home.

Life in LA continued as usual for Milan, minus the regular visits from Jack. But his son still tried to call or video chat with him daily to make up for moving so far away. Jack told his father and mother everything he could about his adventures, excluding classified information. And while hearing about Jack’s dangerous adventures worried Milan, he was so proud of the work he was doing with the Bureau to save the world.

A couple of years after Jack moved away, Milan’s mother suggested a family vacation to Toronto, Canada, to visit Niagara Falls. Milan was hesitant as it meant he would have to spend time with his father, but Giselle promised not to leave him alone with Lance. So, the couple agreed to join Maaike and Lance on the trip and flew to Toronto. The trip was fun, and Milan loved seeing Niagara Falls at night, but things got even better when Jack told them the Bureau would be stopping in Toronto for a day or two while the Archer family was still vacationing there.

Milan was excited to see his son in person again and could have exploded from joy. But the excitement of Jack’s arrival was overshadowed by Lance getting murdered. While he hated the man, he never dreamed of him being murdered, least of all getting killed by an explosive cell phone! And while he always hoped to one day meet the team that had become Jack’s family, he wished it had been under better circumstances…

Of course, being a suspect in a murder investigation meant that secrets were bound to be revealed. Even in death, his father was still hurting him and his family. He couldn't believe that Lance was going to blackmail his own grandson into working for SOMBRA all because he thought the organization was going to kill him for being a liability. But what was even harder to process was the reality of his mother being the person who killed his father. A part of him wonders how different his life would have been if he had told Maaike about the abuse earlier, but Milan guesses he’ll never know if it would have spared his mother from spending the rest of her life in prison.

Of course, some good came out of the murder. The letters Milan wrote were finally given to Jack, and they brought the family closer together. Milan was heartbroken to find out that his son had been raped like he had been years ago, and a morbid part of him was happy that the woman who hurt his baby was dead. Of course, they got a laugh from hearing Jack dub his other biological father a “sperm donor,” which helped lighten the mood. But the mood turned angry after finding out Chief Ripley never informed him and Giselle about Jack getting shot just days earlier!

Before leaving the Bureau’s plane, Milan and Giselle made sure to “introduce themselves” to Chief Ripley. And by introducing, they mean berating her about not informing them about Jack nearly dying! Milan left most of the yelling to Giselle (having worked in the Navy for years, she was an expert at it), but he ensured his opinion on Ripley’s stupid decision was well known. After probably scaring the Chief for life, Milan and Giselle bid goodbye to Jack and his teammates so the Bureau could continue their mission to take down SOMBRA.

Story Information

First appeared: Call Me, Kill Me

Trivia

His style is themed after Mickey Mouse

He can imitate nearly any voice or accent perfectly. He's one of the world's best voice actors!

He used to take Jack on behind-the-scenes tours when his son was younger. Jack always loved visiting the studio and parks

His workplace, The Astraea Galaxie Company, is a parody of The Walt Disney Company

He is an avid collector of Galaxie merchandise and is always wearing at least one item that is Galaxie-themed, even if it's just a character pin

He knows every Galaxie song by heart and can identify most within the first few bars of the music

Gallery

This is the backpack that inspired the one Milan wears in Call Me, Kill Me. It's produced by a company called Loungefly, and while I could never justify spending so much on a bag that I would fear to wear because I wouldn't want it getting dirty, I love their product designs!

Disclaimer: Character design was created using Rinmarugames Mega Anime Avatar Creator! I have only made minor edits to the design! Background courtesy of CriminalArtist5

Links to my stories:

The Case of the Criminal (Ao3/Wattpad) Killer Bay (Ao3/Wattpad) Where in the World are the Killers? (Ao3/Wattpad)

[fuck-customers]

I'm not sure if this is appropriate to submit here, but I have a fuck customers. I'm a transgender cashier (they/them pronouns) in a liberal state, and I wear a pretty obvious pronoun pin every single shift, but the number of customers who use the right pronouns for me is vanishingly small. I haven't been gendered correctly by a customer in months, even though I probably talk to hundreds of customers every single shift; every time someone needs to use a third-person pronoun or a formal title (sir/ma'am/etc.) in reference to me, it's ALWAYS the ones associated with my AGAB. It's not a matter of presentation, because it happens no matter what I wear (we don't have uniforms) or how androgynous I look. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but you'd think if the issue were genuine ignorance, I'd get gendered correctly more often than "basically never". We literally sell a short graphic novel that explains the correct way to use they/them pronouns at my store — it's on the front counter, right next to the register — and yet even my coworkers misgender me sometimes. I don't need to "get used to it" — I've BEEN used to it; I've been out for years and this has been happening the whole time, but being used to it doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Fuck customers. Step it the fuck up.

(Shout out to the very few customers who do bother to get it right, though. I see you and I appreciate you.)

TL;DR: Customers stop ignoring my obvious pronoun pin and misgendering me all the time challenge.

[aziraphaleisagender]

Aziraphale the tailor is unhappy with current fashions and also his clientele are so boring and he never gets a challenge anymore

And then in strolls this person in trash clothes who says, “I need the most androgynous suit you can possibly make, I’ll pay anything.”

Aziraphale perks up a little. “Androgynous?”

“I’m being sued and my opponent keeps misgendering me, I want to make it clear that I am who I am and I’ll stop being me when I’m dead.”

“I can do that.”

So Aziraphale gets the pleasure of designing a suit for Mx. A.J. Crowley---”Just call me Crowley”---and manages to coax them into wearing flattering clothing, though he simply cannot part them from their sunglasses. He doesn’t find out they’re a thief and a blackmailer until he reads about it in the newspaper, that Crowley’s been accused of blackmailing the PM. He is horrified but also, like, kinda smug? Because he provided a fantastic wardrobe for someone who’s in the public eye for a full two months.

And then Aziraphale starts getting Very Powerful And Rich customers... like an ambassador and his wife... and a televangelist from America who dresses almost exclusively in cream and grey... and a short person who he’s pretty sure is in charge of every White British firm in England.

But he always has time to dress Mx. Crowley and mend their treasured silver scarf.

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

It’s (Not) Over, Isn’t It? Chapter Four

Chapter Masterlist

Warning: Misgendering in this chapter

Logan was wondering how they had gotten here. Well, obviously, they had walked to the bus stop and were now on their way to work, but they were speaking in a more metaphorical sense than usual, where they were typing on their phone, on Discord, with one of Patton’s newest recruits to his server, a user who they were informed went by Virgil.

virgilent: look, all i’m saying is that i personally don’t see connie weilding the sword while steven using the shield as basis for a theory that connie is the more dominant personality in the relationship. i think it gives them good balance, to be sure, but outside of that i’m not sure i really agree with the meta. it’s nothing against you, it’s just my personal opinion

Sherlock Holmes: i understand. perhaps i should have not gotten so passionate about the subject when we were merely discussing weapons that you might use in your latest fanfiction. regardless, it has been enjoyable to debate with you

virgilent: you sound so uptight when you speak like that. it’s kinda endearing, in an annoying sorta way

Logan made an affronted noise under their breath.

Sherlock Holmes: i will have you know that i most certainly am not annoying

virgilent: sorry, it was supposed to be a joke. i keep forgetting not everyone shares my love for snark and sarcasm

Sherlock Holmes: well, speaking to only close friends a majority of the time will allow one to forget what outsiders are like. i’m hardly surprised

virgilent: why are the people on this server so understanding? anywhere else and i probably would have been aggressively kicked out and possibly banned by now

Sherlock Holmes: blame the man of sunshine who owns this server. he’s a fantastic influence, and a true follower of the “golden rule” as it were. most of the time i think that i learn more from him than anyone could learn from me, and i’m striving to become a university professor

There was a pause from the other user which allowed Logan to get lost in their thoughts somewhat. There was something different about Virgil, something that they liked. It was similar to why they decided to message Patton, though it wasn’t quite the same pull.

virgilent: that’s a noble goal, teach. good luck

The conversation was soon taken over by a user whose nickname changed at least twice a week and was currently going by Lapis, and Logan allowed themself to just idly read what was going on with these people they were starting to know, and whose company they greatly enjoyed.

The bus came to a full stop, and Logan glanced up to see that they had arrived at their workplace. They got off the bus and adjusted their coat, shivering in the cold rain. It was still autumn, but just barely. They hated the miserable weather, but supposed they were lucky it wasn’t snow.

When they walked into the Tesco’s, they went to the back without a word, got ready, and then walked out to the floor for another mind-numbing day of retail work.

They tried not to flinch whenever some unassuming older woman would compliment them for being “such a nice man,” or when a little kid would wail too close for them to bear. It was a day where Logan wished they had more spoons than they did. To be misgendered and belittled all day, and then have to go home and continue his studies online while ignoring snide comments from his parents, it was hard to keep going through it every day.

Whenever they got a brief respite, they thought to themself about Virgil and Patton. Both of them were strange characters. They had to admit they were closer to Patton than Virgil, though with the sheer amount of time Logan had talked to Virgil, they were hardly surprised that they were closer to him than most on Patton’s server.

“Hey, Thomas!” their manager called.

Logan tried not to cringe and turned expectantly. “Yeah, Charlie?”

Charlie panted a little before he pointed back from where he came. “Can you clean up aisle eight? Someone decided to throw nearly everything to the ground and leave.”

Logan couldn’t help their next cringe, and sighed in defeat. “Yeah, I can clean it up.”

Charlie grinned and clapped them on the shoulder. “You’re a gem, Thomas. Thank you.”

Logan nodded and walked away, thinking to themself, I know you meant that as a compliment, but the deadnaming rather negates the positive message.

There wasn’t anything they could do about it for now, though. They couldn’t risk losing their job, this was the only way they were getting their classes at Uni.

The dreaded aisle eight was an absolute mess and Logan sighed at the sight. It was an aisle that seemed to be cursed with never being clean. If it wasn’t bags of crisps being opened and strewn everywhere, it was all the bags being in the wrong places, tricking the customers into thinking the bags were cheaper than they were, and getting the employees yelled at for mishelving.

Still, they had a job to do, so they slowly and methodically picked up everything that they needed to from its position on the floor and put the bags back in their proper places on the shelves. The bending down and standing up over and over was soon giving Logan a headrush, and they tried to bite back the dizziness that was threatening to take over. They knew they shouldn’t have stayed up until three last night writing that meta, but they couldn’t resist a challenge, and they had aggressively proved themself superior in their meta skills against a “SU-critical” blog which did nothing much more than spread hate.

Their mind sifting through memories made the dizziness a little easier to bear, and made the time pass faster, and soon they were done cleaning up the aisle. For now, at least. They didn’t know when another person might tear it up.

The rest of their day at work passed mostly uneventfully, and they were relieved to get back on their bus home and scroll through Discord. Virgil was apparently in classes, but Patton was on.

Sherlock Holmes: hello, dad.

Papa Patton: heya logan! i hope work was good to you?

Sherlock Holmes: as good as it ever is. how’s everyone here?

Peridot: p good! i just got out of school for the day, which is a HUGE relief

Opal: luckyy, i’m stuck in classes for another three hours

Steven Wannabe: at least you get access to your phone in class. as soon as lunch is over i gotta go. :’(

Sherlock Holmes: i wish you luck, steven

Steven Wannabe: thanks, sherlock

Sherlock Holmes: you know you can always call me logan. you all are about everyone who does, and i appreciate taking advantage of every chance i get to go by my real name

Steven Wannabe: okay. logan. thanks

Sherlock Holmes: any time

Logan got off the bus and walked into their house, nodding to their mother when she said, “Welcome back, Thomas!” They didn’t argue over their name with her. She never understood, and they really didn’t feel up to a shouting match today.

Instead, they went to their room, and checked online for their homework for the day. They were going to become a professor if it killed them; this was their dream job, and they weren’t going to let anyone take that away.

[wishfulife-moved]

Hello! I am new to this blog and I just had a question about Timmy as a teenager. How come his parents kicked him out of the house?

There’s a couple factors. One of them being that Timmy dropped out of school by eleventh grade. He made it the first quarter before suffering with grades and it leading to his worsening depression. His parents are actually on his ass about grades in high school, telling him he needs to stop being an idiot and pay attention in his classes. It’s typically the year in high school where your grades really are told to you being the important ones before college. That’s how it was in my school, and it also happens to be one of the more challenging of the years in high school.

Timmy had managed to get Cs in most of his classes (at least the academic ones like math, science, history, English) in 9th and 10th grade, but hitting 11th grade, it was really difficult for him. Not to mention, his teachers were all super strict, and had no patience for his ADHD. He couldn’t take any art classes that year either since his mom pretty much told him, “he can have his fun classes again when his grade boost to something commendable.” 

With work piling up, the fact none of the new material he’s learning is sticking, and his teachers don’t seem to want to spend the extra time in helping him, and with no creative outlets, stress built up too much. Not to mention, he did participate in his school’s stage crew, and he found he had no time for that anymore, which he had to drop and attempt to study. It was frustrating to him as he has a lot of issues studying, and can’t keep himself still to do it. Eventually, one thing led to another, and he was becoming too upset that he told his parents he couldn’t do school anymore.

The only reason they allowed this was a week long fight about how his dad was a drop out, and there was no right to get pissy with him. His father clearly was doing OK as they constantly are going out on vacations and day trips (without him no less), and he has a job anyway, so he’d pay for his own things anyway. He made the argument too that he could now work full time, and move out when he was of age and let them enjoy their peace.

There’s an uncomfortable mutual knowledge between him and his mom they were not on good terms. His father made some attempts to stay on good terms with Timmy, but after dropping out of school, and being dragged by his son about being a drop out too, it began to fade and he favored his wife’s opinion.

So now he’s working pretty much working 40+ hours at the coffee place he originally worked at maybe three-four days a week after classes. As you can imagine, coffee shops get busy, and now he pretty much spends most of his week days at his job, usually working double shifts. He spends his weekends sleeping because he’s exhausted from work. His mom yells at him for sleeping so much, so that really only lasts for a couple weeks before he inevitably just forces himself to get used to running on an hour of sleep a day, and forcing himself to do chores around the home since his parents either won’t be home to do them, or his mom tells him “since you’re a useless drop out, you might as well help me in the house : /” 

Also, after him dropping out officially, part of why he ended up working so much was because his mom became more and more apparent of her absolute hatred of him being trans, and feeling no more remorse for deadnaming and misgendering him. His dad did nothing about it, and would even defend her saying, “She wanted a daughter Timmy. The least you can do is humor her a little.” It drove him up the wall, and for the first time in a long time, he felt his most severe dysphoria at home. He’d rather suffer from work overloads and shitty customers than his mom being a piece of shit.

All these factors would inevitably lead to his massive breakdown and his biggest, and final fight with both his parents.

His parents had come home from a day vacation, and she started screaming at Timmy for not doing one dish. He said he took a nap earlier (he’d been awake almost two days at that point) and he was going to do them later. She starts calling him all sorts of words, dead naming him again, and at that point, sleep deprivation and exhaustion of constant verbal abuse had finally gotten him to his breaking point and he just lost his shit on her.

He spent a good ten minutes screaming at her about how awful she was, shouting that she needed to “get her shit together and get over the fact he’s a boy and to stop being a petty bitch about this” and then going on about how he works all week because he knows he can’t just stay at home and do nothing. He pays for his own shit, and he’s never asked them in the past two years for anything. He starts bringing stuff up about his childhood, how she’s always been awful to him, and they’ve always left him alone with the worst human alive (Vicky), and how they’ve always forgotten his birthday. Pretty much he just let out a whole slew of internalized anger and sadness out on her at that moment, and they were silent during the whole tirade.

After he stops, his dad is the one to get to screaming at him, surprising both Timmy AND his mother. His dad has always been on his mother’s side, but attempting to be neutral. He called Timmy ungrateful, how he’s done nothing but support his son, but mentioning that he’s never really liked the idea either, and essentially ALSO let off some steam about how Timmy being trans has been a burden to them and feeling as if he spit in their face. After that, there’s more screaming, at some point his mom smacks him, and it eventually ends with his parents both yelling and going, “you have a week to get out of this house.”

At first he didn’t know how to react, until he eventually went, “Are you fucking serious?” And his mom pretty much says, “Be happy I’m giving you a week. I want you out NOW, but that’s unrealistic.”

And yeah. That’s why his parents kicked him out. 

[queer-supremacist-blog]

31 Days of Trans Visibility (12 days late...time of color)

Day 1: Make yourself known. Tell the world your name, age, and how you identify. Post a picture of yourself.

Name: Justice Philip Valentine (in v trans fashion, gender neutral first name, masc middle name, and a last name lol)

Age: 23

Self-ID: I just call myself transmasculine... Not a trans man. 

Day 2: Talk about your process of discovery and realization. How did you come to understand yourself to be trans?

I have a really interesting story. I always visualized my body being read as “male” (bc what even is that?) but I wanted a flat chest, and a beard, and a slender form with minimal curves. I always ignored it. I’ve been studying on my own about gender and sexuality and social justice since I was 9 years old, I’m still studying it (still on my own). And  I started researching about sexuality, learned that I was a “bisexual”. Then I read the definitions and transgender [man] came up as [remember this the early 2000′s (2003, to be exact)] a man in a woman’s body. I didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with my body, so I rejected that definition but ever since that day, it’s been the back of my mind ”I could be transgender.” then denying it.

Then I got fired from my job at 20 years old and went into sex work. I was a cam model and I was doing a show and a customer asked me what I would do if I was a guy for a day. Then without hesitation I shot off a few quick answers and he asked if I had thought about it for a while and I said yeah. Then I stopped denying it.

Day 3: Talk about coming out. Are you out? Who did you come out to first? How did people in your life react? 

What do you mean “out”? I’ve told folks...whether they listen or not Idk.

My cousin.

Split. My mom freaked. My cousin is supportive. I hang around a bunch of queer and trans folx. My co-workers at the restaurant where I work know but I still get deadnamed, misgendered, instances of transphobia. Typical cist bullshit. 

Day 4: Talk about transition. Do you want to? What kind of progress have you made? How has the process affected your day to day life? Do you feel your transition is complete?

I do want to “transition”. I am transitioning. I’ve been on testosterone for 9 months. I sometimes get dapped up by Black men. I get to crush men’s misogyny when they read me as male. It is getting increasingly more difficult to go to work and get misgendered and deadnamed. 

Day 5: Talk about dysphoria. Do you experience dysphoria? How does it affect you? What things do you do to cope with it?

I get voice dysphoria real bad, it’s never deep enough. I just hate everything about how I look. I hate being in pictures. I’m going to die alone because I wanted to transition and lost someone I really loved. 

Day 6: Talk about relationships. Do you have anyone special in your life? Have your relationships been affected by your being trans?

Yes, my therapist. Yes. I left my mom’s house and we had a huge fight and didn’t talk to her for almost a year. And cis boyfriend of almost two years broke up with me. 

Day 7: Talk about children. Do you have any? Do you want to be a parent? Do you face any challenges to your desire or lack of desire for children? How have you worked against those challenges?

I don’t want to talk about children.

Day 8: Talk about support. Who in your life has helped you? Have medical and mental health providers served your needs? Have lawmakers in your jurisdiction worked to protect you?

My cousin, my clinic has been a huge help. I get mental health help, and my providers are knowledgeable. 

Day 9: Talk about community. How are you treated by your local community? Do you participate in any online communities? How have they reacted to you being trans?

There’s a lot of stuff going on with local organizers. I’m not in any online communitites. idk.

Day 10: Talk about employment and your career. What do you do to support yourself? Are you in a traditionally gendered field or occupation? How have your co-workers reacted to your being trans?

I’m host at a restaurant. 

Day 11: Talk about expression and presentation. Do you present as your identified gender? Do you use cosmetics? Do you use scented products? Do you wear jewelry or other accessories? Which rack do most of your clothes come off of? Do you take any special measures with regard to body, facial, or head hair? Have you faced any particular challenges related to your gender expression or presentation?

I present as myself. I am “queering masculinity”. I fill in my eyebrows a bit to make them pop. I don’t use perfume or cologne. From the Men’s rack. I don’t pass so I just look like a bad attempt at being a stud.

Day 12: Talk about other trans people in your life. Have you met any other trans people? Do you have any trans friends? How have you helped each other?

I’m a trans support group. I’m a part of the RVA DIY QTPOC community. We just get it.

[kacydeneen]

A Trans Woman's Harrowing Journey Through the Asylum Process

Jimena says she wore handcuffs almost everywhere she went at Winn Correctional Center: To visit the doctor, on the way to meet her attorney and even on phone calls.

But sometimes, the cuffs came off, and she says she instead spent virtually all day locked behind a maximum security door at the Louisiana prison. Like in a movie, where a guard has to press a button to let prisoners out.  

All of this occurred in the aftermath of a medical emergency, when Jimena says she was attacked by one of the facility's health care professionals while trying to comfort another detainee who had purposely cut herself. 

“For helping, they punished me,” Jimena told NBC. 

Jimena is a transgender asylee from Honduras and has no criminal record there or in the United States, said her attorney, Karen Hoffmann, who asked NBC to only use her client's preferred name to protect her safety.

In mid-August, Jimena encountered another trans asylum seeker at Winn who cut herself near the wrist in an attempt at self-harm, according to sources with direct knowledge of the incident. When Jimena tried to help the bleeding woman and gave her a hug, she and her attorney say a nurse at the facility struck her twice on the back, leaving marks.  

“Nothing ICE does at this point is really unbelievable, but it was shocking to me,” said Hoffmann. “Especially the fact that it’s a nurse.”

As punishment afterwards, Jimena and her advocates say she spent a week isolated and alone in her cell where all she could see was the wall around her. In the rare moments when she was allowed to visit other parts of the prison, she says she was forced to wear metal handcuffs. 

The only time she got to see the sun was when she was taken to the prison yard during the afternoon. In Winnfield, Louisiana, where the temperature sometimes reached triple digits in mid-August, Jimena stood outside for an hour or longer in a cage with no shade or cover.

While Jimena was in detention, she said there were times when she didn’t want to exist anymore.

“But. .. I’m here for a reason," she said in Spanish. "And the reason is because I want to remain alive."

Today, Jimena is finally settling into life in the U.S. But she and her attorney described harrowing harassment and mistreatment she endured for more than half a year just to access her right to refuge. And with around a million pending immigration court cases, plus thousands of immigrant detainees such as Jimena holed up in ICE facilities across Louisiana, advocates suggest the horrors she faced while in ICE custody are far from isolated or anecdotal. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Bryan D. Cox told NBC that “all persons in ICE custody are under arrest by a federal law enforcement agency for violations of federal law.” But Jimena didn’t break the law by asking for asylum.

Cox required a privacy waiver to answer any questions specific to Jimena, but when one was provided, he did not respond with comment. He would not say whether Jimena was forced to wear handcuffs; ICE’s national detention standards mandate that under no circumstances should staff apply restraints as a form of punishment. Asked twice for video surveillance of the alleged assault, Cox did not make the footage available. Nor would he say whether Jimena was placed in disciplinary segregation — ICE's version of solitary confinement — when she was confined to a cell, or what she had done to deserve punishment. 

Cox said that “in general, a suicide attempt or alien injury would be considered an ICE Significant Incident” and documented as such, and there were no reports of a similar occurrence at Winn on Aug. 20, when the other trans asylum seeker allegedly cut herself.

But a person with knowledge of the situation, who asked to keep their identity secret for the privacy and protection of the trans woman in question, corroborated Jimena’s account that an attempt at self-harm took place at the facility last month. The source was unable to confirm an alleged attack on Jimena because of lack of information. 

Endless detention, near-constant harassment When Jimena came to the U.S., she waited her turn at the U.S.-Mexico border so on Jan. 13 she could present herself at the San Ysidro port of entry in California and lawfully request asylum. She was then whisked thousands of miles away and incarcerated for more than seven months at three different facilities — despite an asylum officer determining that she had a credible fear of persecution in Honduras.

At all of the places where she was held in the U.S., she was harassed and demeaned: Called homophobic and misogynistic slurs "f----t" and "w---e," whistled at, catcalled, and told she was destined for hell, according to a document submitted by Hoffmann to an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations assistant field office director in an attempt to secure Jimena's release. When other prisoners insulted her, Jimena asked for help, but she says the official she alerted did nothing.

The last facility where Jimena was detained, Winn, sits near a town with fewer than 4,500 residents, in a remote area where cell service is spotty and the closest cities are about an hour away. Now run by LaSalle Corrections, it holds just under 1600 people at capacity and was the subject of a 2016 Mother Jones exposé on poor prison conditions.

It’s one of the facilities where people “feel like trash, ... like you don’t want to live anymore,” Jimena said.

And now, it’s filled with immigrants, including asylum seekers: In early August, ICE listed its average daily population for Winn as more than 251 people in the 2019 fiscal year.

Asked repeatedly for comment by phone and email, La Salle Corrections did not respond to NBC.

Winn is not Louisiana's only contentious immigrant holding place. The state has become something of a hotbed for ICE under the Trump administration, recently hosting the agency's largest detainee population outside of Texas, according to NBC News. 

During the last few years, the New Orleans ICE field office that oversees enforcement and removal operations in Louisiana stopped releasing almost all asylum seekers through an ICE policy called parole that allows migrants who have passed the first hurdle in the asylum process to fight their cases outside of government custody. In practice, the near-blanket denials meant that migrants in Louisiana were languishing indefinitely in detention as their cases wound through the courts, until a recent preliminary injunction required the New Orleans field office to restore parole for those who qualified.

Long, drawn-out detentions pose hardships and due process concerns for all asylum seekers, but they present unique challenges for trans women, attorneys suggested. If trans asylum seekers are not at ICE’s only known permanent, transgender-specific detention unit in New Mexico, they're likely held alongside men or in segregation. When they're detained with men  — as Jimena was for part of the time she was in ICE custody — they face a high risk of sexual and physical assault, said Allegra Love, an attorney and the director of Santa Fe Dreamers Project, which she said has represented hundreds of trans women in recent years.

Love and her colleagues field near-constant complaints from clients about discrimination, misgendering, abuse by guards and fear of danger at detention facilities. And if a trans woman reports feeling unsafe surrounded by men, ICE’s reaction is to isolate her, Love said — a tactic a United Nations expert on torture has said may cause "severe mental pain or suffering."

ICE does not collect comprehensive data on how many detainees are being segregated, though NBC News has tracked thousands of such occasions. Under the current administration, solitary confinement is on the rise for immigrant detainees: The Project on Government Oversight documented a 15.2% increase in solitary placements during the first 15 months of Trump's presidency, compared to the last 15 months of Barack Obama’s. 

Cox did cite two studies ICE conducted that found only about 1.1% of its detained population was segregated at any given time — research done in May 2012 and March 2013, more than half a decade ago and under a previous administration.

Lynly Egyes, the Transgender Law Center's legal director, has practiced immigration law and represented trans people for more than 12 years. She said ICE uses solitary confinement as a way to control trans women, and sometimes the person doesn’t even know why they’ve been placed there.

There’s no reason to detain any asylum seeker, said Love, but it's especially bad for trans women because they're so unsafe.

“It’s an optional hell,” Love said. “They can just let them all go.”

Where can they go? Like countless others who are held by ICE but have family and friends who are willing to take them in, Jimena has a place to call home in the U.S. Her sponsors, David Andres Martinez and Alex Pedro Rosalez, waited for months to meet her in-person.

After connecting with Jimena through a friend who volunteered at the border, Martinez and Rosalez spent 15 minutes nearly every day on the phone with her. As members of the LGBTQ+ community themselves, they identified with her story.

“The only difference between Jimena and us is where we were born,” Martinez said.

As sponsors for Jimena, Martinez and Rosalez compiled a long list of documents to prove they would support her. Their U.S. passports and driver’s licenses. A utility bill. Tax returns, earnings statements, a bank statement. The person in charge of this country had to submit less than they did just to look after one of his detainees, Martinez said. 

And yet, even after all that, Jimena remained in ICE custody, allegedly because the agency was not convinced she was not a flight risk. The days and weeks trickled past, but Jimena still gave her sponsors scant details about what she was going through: “She always says, ‘oh, I don’t want to worry you,’” Martinez said.

Then, when she was allegedly struck by a nurse and isolated — after being detained for more than seven months — she told them more.

She said she was in handcuffs. She said she was not a criminal. She asked why she was being treated like this.

“Jimena presented herself, did not come into this country in the dead of night. She followed all the rules,” said Martinez. “And it just seems like a broken system that awful people are just trying to make it harder for the people who want to do things right.”

Death and asylum Statistically, it has become more difficult to eventually be granted asylum here. Based on data from fiscal year 2018, the Executive Office for Immigration Review reported that asylum denials increased 193% in recent years. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, they jumped to 65% last fiscal year. 

But for trans women, asylum claims are easier to articulate: It’s widely understood that members of the LGBTQ+ community are often persecuted. Love said the vast majority of trans women are granted asylum, partly because “they have incredibly strong asylum cases.”

Despite the likelihood that transgender asylum seekers will be given the opportunity to stay in the U.S., and despite the unique hardships they face when they’re detained, trans women such as Jimena are sometimes being held throughout the asylum process — with life-threatening consequences. Already, two trans women have died in just over a year: Johana Medina Leon died last summer, days after being released by ICE and taken to a hospital, and Roxsana Hernandez died in ICE custody in 2018.

Others who are detained face potentially lethal mental health setbacks. 

“A large percentage of our clients express suicidal ideation, and some of them have attempted it," Love said. "It’s really scary.”

In the end, Jimena got out. Judge Brock E. Taylor — a newly appointed immigration judge — presided over her asylum case in late-August. She won.

Taylor delivered his decision orally, but according to notes provided by Hoffmann — Jimena’s attorney — he found Jimena to be “fully credible.” He detailed violence she faced in Honduras and told her she was lucky to be alive after an attack she had survived.

Because Jimena waited to enter the U.S. at a legal port of entry, she proved she was committed to the rule of law, Taylor said, according to the notes. She deserves this opportunity, he added, and will make a positive contribution to society.

Jimena was granted asylum based on her gender identity and political opinion. On Aug. 30, she was finally released from Winn and joined Martinez and Rosalez in California.

But before that, another woman in Virginia caught wind of Jimena’s struggles. Amanda, who asked to use only her first name because of an unrelated safety matter, did not know the asylum seeker from Honduras. But a tweet about Jimena’s case caught her attention.

In July, Amanda set the goal to paint a new piece of art that represents a quote from a detained migrant every day. And on Aug. 22, Day 35 of the exercise, she took on Jimena’s story.

Amanda wanted to create a reality where Jimena ended up in a place that let her protect herself and those she loved. She wanted to represent the asylum seeker with something that was fierce and female, that no one would dare strike. Not even a nurse at Winn Correctional Center.

On watercolor paper, a tigress stares upward. It’s hard to tell where she’s looking, and whether she’s hopeful, or afraid, or something in-between. But there’s both majesty and determination in her amber eyes. Like maybe — just maybe — she’s finally going to be free.

Photo Credit: Sam Hart/NBC This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. A Trans Woman's Harrowing Journey Through the Asylum Process published first on Miami News