
Help 2 trans people fight a legal battle
Donation protected
SEEKING URGENT LEGAL HELP!!!
My partner and I (both trans, and my partner is a POC) were traveling home through Idaho around midnight and got pulled over by police as we tried to avoid a commuting truck that was kicking a ton of water into our windshield for "driving too close." During the ticket write up the cop claimed he smelled weed and proceeded to spend an hour throughly searching our car. It was 20 degrees out and raining -- he threw our stuff onto the ground during the search and we were removed from the vehicle and searched.
After the search we're facing 3 misdemeanor charges - one of which is for the alleged possession of a tiny grinder. The punishment for these misdemeanors will be something on the spectrum of a $1000 fine to a year in prison. Due to the current political climate we're terrified of prison time because in a federal prison it would mean mandated detransition, and living as queer people in prison is incredibly hard.
We need community support to fight our charges and get the minimum possible punishment. In order to avoid months of ongoing 10 hour trips back to the county this happened in and for more certainty of avoiding prison time we need to hire a lawyer instead of going with a public defender.
Break down of costs:
$193 - fines
$5000 - for a lawyer *needed by 4/7/25*
$1000 - fine after court
This is acutely difficult for us as a couple financially because only one of us is employed so the majority of our money goes into our rent even though we're in low income housing.
We would deeply appreciate any support / shares of our fundraiser! We don't want to provide more details about our case publicly on the advice of our lawyer but are happy to chat privately.
Any extra funds that we might end up with we will post about for transparency and donate to lavender rights project. Please donate here or venmo to @cedarrapids, anything helps. Thank you for your support!
Organizer
Cedar Emerson
Organizer
Seattle, WA