An Invitation to Endless Wonder

Despite a so-called ceasefire, bombs are still being dropped on Gaza. There is still a full-scale occupation. The border is still closed, cutting off an escape route for the thousands and thousands of people stuck there. Even if that wasn’t true, the people of Gaza are still starving, cold, sick, and under threat of death from those things.

All Amal is fundraising for is a tent. A tent. She fully knows this tent won't keep her safe or warm, but she simply needs a place she can recover after giving birth in the coming days instead of being stranded without shelter. That's all she's asking for and that's why we're trying to help her reach her target.

When I say donating and sharing is the least you can do, I truly and wholeheartedly mean it. Please do what you can and always remember that no amount is too small when we're all donating and sharing collectively.

Oh, finally! After so much hard work, sleepless nights, and suffering, we've achieved 95% of our goal. Please, we're almost there! We need 4,000 euros to reach our goal. Reaching my goal has become my dream. Please donate some euros to us. We're almost there. Please, I want to save my family from this ruin. Please donate.share this post if you can.

Even with the intersection of fatphobia and misogynoir, fat black women are not a hyper minority. There were black women who spoke life into me. There was a time where my social media feeds was solely black women of various sizes. There are well respected black female celebrities who are bigger, yes not that many, but it exists. People literally liken Aretha Franklin to a queen.

There is no trans female answer to Lizzo, for example. Yes, Lizzo is hated by many, but still, she is highly successful and her music was inescapable. I can also think off the top of my head Yseult & Chika, also there are so many black women who rose to fame while fat/plus size (Missy & Jhud). So clearly the barriers to entry aren't as harsh as that for TW broadly.

So, while it's nice for us as TMEs to see ourselves in TW, I feel like people don't get what a hyperminority means. Little trans girls are not in communities full of people who look like them. It's very common for trans women to first encounter their likeness in pornography or a hateful caricature. Very few fat people in the west can claim they/we never saw a fat person until they were being mocked or objectified in media. It really is not the same at all, as OP already said in response to the notes.

I actually remember being asked by a boy in school if I'd date a "chick with tits & a dick" (it wasn't innocent, he acted like it was gross) bc I told him I was pan, and I said "yes" and it was only when I said "they're people like you & me" did he have the shame to look embarassed. We were like thirteen? I remember boys performing disgust at black and fat girls at school, but not like that. It was framed as "preference" usually, not like a perversion of some kind.

However, some aspect of the comparison to fat and black experiences wasn't quite sitting right with me, and I think you hit it harder than I had even thought myself.

I had no one. I'm from a "liberal" area of the country. I still had no one. There were one or two trans guys at my high school who transitioned quietly. I've checked in with some people I went to HS with, a couple of trans women transitioned well past the age of 18.

I did not knowingly meet a trans woman who had already transitioned until I was 21, and even that was just in passing. The first time I made trans friends irl was when I was at a low point, lost and deliberately seeking community, thinking about transition myself, when I was 24.

So what perception did I have of trans women before then?

Movies and TV. Serial killers, men in dresses, characters that are treated as deceitful and/or disgusting, and gags over and over about how sick and twisted and disgusting those stupid transvestites are.

There's a lot of generational pain that I'm saved by being white. I really, really hope this doesn't come across as trying to benchmark my experiences as a white trans woman against things that I can't understand. But you genuinely articulated something here, unique to the experience of being a trans woman, that I had been struggling to say myself. Thank you.

This is actually really reminiscent about some chapters in Detransition, Baby, that ring really true. The lack of generationality to the trans experience, the lack of guaranteed role models, is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means that generational persecution isn't necessarily passed down through the family, but on the other, you get this disconnect.

Every day here in Gaza feels like a year carved into our chests. The war isn’t like it was in the early days—the sky is quieter, the air carries less smoke, and the nights hold fewer explosions. But the pain… it still lives under the rubble, inside our memories, and in the empty spaces where our loved ones once stood.

I’m writing this today not because the war has completely ended, but because for the first time in a long while, it feels like the horizon is opening a little. A small space where we can breathe, gather ourselves, and try to rebuild what’s left of our lives. Yet every step forward feels like walking on wounded memories, and every stone from our destroyed home whispers stories we never got to finish.

We lived through nights so heavy we thought morning would never come. We lost things that can never be replaced—homes, dreams, pieces of our hearts. But we are still here… holding on, trying, fighting to stay standing despite everything.

And in the middle of this long road… there is a house. A house that once carried laughter, warmth, noise, and life. Today, all that remains is an image holding a memory—and rubble longing for the people who once lived inside.

Today, we are trying to rebuild—not just the walls of a house, but an entire life that was shattered. We are trying to create a new beginning, to live with dignity again, to give our family a sense of safety that we’ve been missing for so long.

We’re not writing this to mourn what was lost, but to ask for a chance to start again. We ask for your support because rebuilding after a war is not something one person can do alone—it is a human effort, a shared act of compassion. We need you. We need your hearts. We need your help to stand again.

Because Gaza has no working banking system, we use my brother U.S. Stripe account to safely process donations for our family. Nothing is hidden — every dollar goes where it should. We are ready to show proof of anything, at any time.

Every contribution—no matter how small—makes a difference. It becomes part of our story, part of rebuilding a home, part of reviving a life that nearly faded.

The war may be almost over… but our journey back to life begins now.