Danielle
Please…make the world a better, more kind place. All I really cared about in the end was achieving social justice, kindness, and understanding for all.
These are not my words. They are Charlie’s. Her last wish was that we do what she would have done if only she had the will to survive.
Charlie is why I am writing today. Perhaps her spirit is guiding me, I don’t know, but I know that this is what she would want me to do.
Some months ago, a girl called Danielle (Dani) started following me on Instagram. I checked her profile, as you do, and I could see that she was a trans girl trying to connect with some trans affirming people.
As the months have passed, I have become aware of the cruel and harsh life Dani has been saddled with. Charlie had everything. She even believed that she had been “loved more than [she] deserved”. But Charlie deserved all the love in the world. Dani deserves love too but that is far from her reality.
Dani lives in a tiny farming village in the Asia. The two main industries where she lives are farming and tourism. But as a transgender girl, she can't work in those traditional industries because she is hated and abused by everyone around her, including her own parents.
Dani's family is so transphobic that she is not even allowed to eat with them. She gets the scraps if any food is left over. She often goes hungry.
Neither does Dani have a bedroom. Her family's tiny home has two bedrooms. One for her parents and little brother and the other for her transphobic brother. She lives on the balcony. She has no bed to sleep on - just a bench - and no electrical outlet to charge her phone, which is her only lifeline.
Dani is an artist. She knows that she can support herself through art commissions and other online work. But her only means to make and share her art - a computer and an ipad - are both broken. The computer is infested with ants, which means nearly all of her electronic art has been destroyed. Any physical art she has made, her father has destroyed.
Dani has tried working in the community but she was so abused on the bus to work that she had to walk for miles instead. As she moves around in her village, she is constantly taunted, harassed, and threatened. She has been sexually assaulted more times than she cares to mention, beginning when she was a child. She doesn’t like to share this because it’s so painful. She is so traumatized by these incidents that she fears going out in public. And for good reason, given the lack of protection for transgender women and men in the Philippines.
Dani loves animals and cares for them. Animals are virtually the only beings that don’t abuse her where she lives.
Dani has plans to pull herself out of the hateful, impoverished world she was born into. But without a means to make and sell her art, she is left with no alternative but to plead for help. Other girls in her shoes turn to the streets, which is no way for a young person to live. I’m sharing Dani’s story so that we can collectively give her the hand up she needs.
Dani isn’t asking for much - only enough funds to secure a place of her own away from her abusive family and the transphobic village she lives in. She needs a room and an iPad so she can live and work in a way that shelters her from a society that treats her as a pariah. She also has medical issues that she needs treatment for and food so she can eat until she can earn some money through commissions. Her dream is to earn enough to live and then she plans to give back to the LGBTQ community.
I can’t save the world. I couldn’t even save Charlie. But I hope that you will consider helping me to save a girl who has been mistreated all her life. Please help me to help Danielle. It’s what Charlie would want us to do.
