Hello, and welcome to my legal costs fundraiser!

Danielle Muscato here. I'm a civil rights activist, writer, public speaker, and transgender woman from St Louis. You may recognize my name as the woman whose "tweet storm" about Donald Trump's SNL tweets went viral in December of last year. I wrote a followup op-ed for Newsweek here.

On April 20 of this year, I was arrested for protesting cannabis prohibition and racist enforcement of anti-drug laws in our judicial system. The planned protest action involved smoking cannabis openly in public—directly in front of the St. Louis Metro Police Department—in an act of civil disobedience. I displayed two large signs while protesting, one reading "I Have Chronic (Pain): Arrest Me" and the other reading "Legalize Cannabis: End The Racist War on Drugs."

I'm raising money to pay my lawyer for my defense.  While my lawyer has made it clear that he will defend me, as a civil rights activist, for no charge if necessary, his practice specializes in defending activists. If I have the ability to raise enough money through my social media following, I would very much like to pay him, not only for his time but also to make it possible for him to defend other activists in the future pro bono who do not have the ability to raise funds for their defense. That's where you come in!

If you would like to look him up, my lawyer's name is Joe Welch. He is licensed to practice law in Missouri and his office is in the city of St. Louis.

The market value for my legal defense costs is about $1,500. My lawyer said he will accept $500 in my case.

Any excess will go toward supporting The #RESIST Podcast, the weekly social justice activism program I host along with producer Esther Roth-Colson and engineer Kevin Harvell. For more information, follow @RESISTpodcast on Twitter.

Simply put, your financial support makes my work possible. I am a full-time activist who is only able to make a positive difference because of YOU! Your support inspires and invigorates me and I am ineffably grateful.

As you may know, I am actually semi-homeless at the moment. I was living in my car for awhile, but I'm currently crashing on a friend's floor in St Louis. I'm actually doing OK here for the time being and believe it's important to continue my work even while I am housing-insecure (although if you would like to support me in helping with my housing situation and transition, I also have a Patreon pledge page here! ). I am *not* getting rich off doing this work , but I believe with all my heart that the work I do is incredibly important and that, under a Trump administration, it will only be more important moving forward. I am working hard beginning my transition as a trans woman, and it's going very slowly. The world is not very accepting of people like me, but I'm not letting that stop me, or even slow me down. If you would like more information about my current situation, or if you have ANY other questions, please feel free to ask me directly, or also, I recently hosted a 2-hour video AMA (ask me anything) here.

I am very grateful for your support , at any dollar amount. Thank you, and please share this as well!

Love and respect,

Danielle

Twitter @DanielleMuscato

Facebook.com/daniellemuscato.page

danielle@daniellemuscato.com