Thriving

The application for guardianship is filed at the same time, my mother did all of that on Friday [15 March]

This is solely to gain full control over me legally so that I can be forced into conversion therapy. I am, in fact, mentally competent. However, I live in a small town in the Deep South, my grandfather is loaded & a retired fire chief, my uncle is a lawyer, half the rest of my uncles & older cousins are either fire fighters or police. In other words they have a fuckton of connections and the uncle who is most directly assisting my mother with the process has guaranteed that they can push this through because he’s helped other people do it to their children before. Yes, this is illegal as all hell. No, I can’t call APS- local APS is in on it, a check by APS is literally part of the process to have someone declared mentally incompetent.

The only way to get me out of this is to get a legit psych eval. Bare minimum, I HAVE to have that. It will also help my case considerably to not be living with my grandmother, so no one can pull a “oh I provide care daily, x can corroborate my statement” and ideally far enough away that “I drive out daily to provide care” will also very clearly be impossible. I can’t just ditch out, there’s going to be a bunch of court ordered evals and appearances- they will find me and drag me back, completely legally.

Psych evals are expensive. Moving is also expensive. There’s a full breakdown of the costs over at my gofundme- https://www.gofundme.com/juzfrd-help-me-not-be-forced-into-conversion-therapy

My mom’s parents said “We don’t care who you love.” At that point she’d only ever brought home white guys. She brought my dad home-her mother called her a nigger lover and damned the relationship as much as possible. Her father grew around his prejudices after I was born but never apologized, just wasn’t a blatant fuck.

The day she introduced my father to her family was the last time she spoke to her mother for over twenty years. When I was getting sick and she called and asked her mother and grandmother if anyone in the family had anything strange happen similar what I was going through they told her “it’s because you married a black man. You made your bed, you lie in it.”

Cops pulled them over all the time and asked my mom IF SHE WAS OKAY AND IF SHE NEEDED HELP BECAUSE MY FATHER-A BLACK MAN-WAS DRIVING A 100 POUND WHITE WOMAN AROUND. HE WAS HARRASSED AND THREATED WITH ARREST.

My father ended up getting into a fight in self defence because some entitled hick decided he didn’t like seeing a black man and white woman in the bar together. Thankfully other patrons helped my father but he still couldn’t go to the er for his injuries. My mom patched him up and they were terrified the cops would take him away.

THEIR BEST FRIEND GOT LICENSED TO MARRY THEM SO THEY COULD ACTUALLY TIE THE KNOT BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WOULD AND CITED JIM CROW ERA LAW AS TO WHY.

When shopping with just me my father wouldn’t hold my hand if there was a group around. Why? I’m far lighter than him and people had stopped and asked him “whose child is that?” Or “little girl where’s your parents?” and were stunned when I grinned and pointed at my dad and proudly proclaimed “my daddy’s right here.” You know where else mixed kids couldn’t hold their parents hands? Apartheid South Africa. We live in fucking FLORIDA.

YOU’VE BEEN STRUCK BY

A SMOOTH CRIMINAL

This kept happening no matter where I went in Morocco. Even fluent English speakers decided to give me alternative names, and I just shrugged it off as the consequence of one of the syllables being very unusual in Arabic.

That is, until one day I was talking to a shopkeeper in the souk and he asked me my name. I gave him my English one, and explained that I also answer to Brahim (and Daud, and… more than I can remember). He laughed hysterically and looked shocked, calling his friend over from the back of the shop.

“Tell him your name,” he said excitedly. I did so.

The other man’s face cycled through several expressions very quickly—surprise, anger, suspicion, and then exasperation when he realized his friend had set me up.

They very kindly explained to me that my name spoken with a Moroccan accent sounds very much like an Arabic profanity, and that I should definitely introduce myself as Brahim or give an alternative English name when meeting new people, because shaking hands with strangers and saying “Hello, I’m Fuck Your Mother’s Religion” is not a greeting that will win me many friends.