Calliope's Honoring her Parents.
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My name is Calliope Wong, and I’m a 19-year-old English major at the UConn Honors Program who’s planning on attending medical school in order to one day be an endocrinologist. I also happen to be a transgender woman, meaning I was assigned at birth “male” but am taking steps to match my body with who I understand myself to be—a girl becoming a woman.
In addition to being a pre-med track English major, I’m an activist for the LGBT and transgender community. A year ago, I launched a media campaign and petition promoting fair acceptance policies for transgender women like myself at Smith and other historical women’s colleges. I received over 5,000 signatures nation-wide calling for trans equality at Smith College. I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my studies, apply to colleges, and run my campaign for transgender equality without the support of my parents, Geoff Wong and Vicki Lee, who originally came to the United States as college students without either strong familial support or the ability to converse in English.
I’m wordlessly lucky to be my parents’ daughter, for—though there were many hardships and breaks in communication earlier on—we are a family that stands strong together.
I am asking for your help in repaying my parents. Though they have agreed to pay the $20,000 cost of what is commonly known as SRS (sex-reassignment transition surgery)—my father has even taken on a second career in real estate in order to partially cover the surgery cost—I feel an overwhelmingly deep debt and gratitude that I must honor to the best of my ability. I would like to surprise my parents with a full reimbursement of the $20,000 that they've committed to funding my transition costs by the end of this summer, on August 29th, 2014.
Please help me to honor my parents and repay what I can—so that I’ll be able to move onwards, to my future, with the assurance that I tried my best as my mother and father’s daughter. This is how I can repay a debt of love.
In addition to being a pre-med track English major, I’m an activist for the LGBT and transgender community. A year ago, I launched a media campaign and petition promoting fair acceptance policies for transgender women like myself at Smith and other historical women’s colleges. I received over 5,000 signatures nation-wide calling for trans equality at Smith College. I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my studies, apply to colleges, and run my campaign for transgender equality without the support of my parents, Geoff Wong and Vicki Lee, who originally came to the United States as college students without either strong familial support or the ability to converse in English.
I’m wordlessly lucky to be my parents’ daughter, for—though there were many hardships and breaks in communication earlier on—we are a family that stands strong together.
I am asking for your help in repaying my parents. Though they have agreed to pay the $20,000 cost of what is commonly known as SRS (sex-reassignment transition surgery)—my father has even taken on a second career in real estate in order to partially cover the surgery cost—I feel an overwhelmingly deep debt and gratitude that I must honor to the best of my ability. I would like to surprise my parents with a full reimbursement of the $20,000 that they've committed to funding my transition costs by the end of this summer, on August 29th, 2014.
Please help me to honor my parents and repay what I can—so that I’ll be able to move onwards, to my future, with the assurance that I tried my best as my mother and father’s daughter. This is how I can repay a debt of love.
Organizer
Calliope Mora Wong
Organizer
New Haven, CT
