After 113 Contracts, I Have a Perfect Job Success Score on a Globe-Spanning Freelancing Platform. Yet, I’m Destitute. Facial Feminization & Tracheal Shave Surgery Can’t Come Soon Enough.

As far as societies have come in terms of social acceptance, we still have a ways to go. That has been made clear to me given that I have a perfect Job Success Score on a globe-spanning freelancing platform, yet am destitute.

The freelancing platform is Upwork. The JSS is expressed as a 100% mark. Upwork defines the score as “The percentage of this freelancer’s jobs that resulted in a great client experience.”

I even have a blue check mark.

Height can’t be seen and voices can’t be heard on Upwork. However, the Adam’s Apple and masculine faces are — a photo accompanies every profile on the platform.

My payment rate and profile are essentially the same as before I came out professionally nine-and-a-half months ago. (When it comes to Upwork, that meant changing my name and profile photo.)

I currently have one contract. (It’s about discrimination.) But one contract isn’t enough.

I’ve been able to do just four contracts since coming out. In the year-and-a-half preceding that, I was able to freelance full-time.

My facial feminization and tracheal shave surgery that will take place in one to two months is not needed just for health. It’s economically needed, too.

Below is a screenshot showing the 100% and my profile photo. (The total jobs is 114 because of the 113 I’ve done plus the one I currently do have.)

I strive to offset disrespect in any way I can — for example, I’ll use the middle initial between my first and last name.

At least to this point, it hasn’t mattered, however.

You sure can ask the IRS. I legitimately owned a business.

Now, I have nothing.

Here is more of the photo that is my Upwork profile photo:

I advise those who aren’t certain of their gender to not come out until they are. Because the darkest season of life can result. However, my point in writing this content piece is just to stress that we have a long way to go in terms of acceptance of gender non-conforming folks.

And especially gender non-conforming folks like transgender women. Because so many of us don’t pass as cisgender women.

(And my 6'7" height and still-really-in-training voice have impacted me negatively outside of work. I find that I have experienced perhaps nine instances of discrimination in the past nine-and-a-half months. That entire time, I have been in the left-leaning Los Angeles area. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been had I stayed in strongly-right rural Utah.)

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