My name is Isla Ross. I am a poet, dungeon master, book lover, gamer, and cog in the industrial machine. I am also a transgender woman. Gender transition is a radical act of self love, more so than any other I have taken. I embarked on this journey as a suicidal teen, unable to picture a future in which I was happy with myself. That is, unable to picture a future in which I was happy and male. Deciding I deserved to be happy sparked my own personal revolution. In the eyes of the world, I now appear female. I have not been misgendered by a stranger in 2 years. I don't get side-eyed in bathrooms. No one bothers to check the gender marker on my driver's license. I no longer hide from mirrors or pictures. In many ways my transition is a success. I still have work to do on myself, but I can see a me that I love. This is something I once thought impossible. This, however, only diminishes my experience of social dysphoria. The other end of the spectrum, body dysphoria, remains a pervasive issue. Trips to the bathroom remain painful affairs. Showers remain a daunting, and at times insurmountable obstacle. The need to 'tuck' remains, an often aching source of inexplicable wrongness. More than anything, I want to fix the thorn. I NEED to fix the thorn. I am desperate to love every part of me. This bodily glitch is a pervasive obstacle. I am left clinging to any distraction that can keep me from feeling present in this form. This is all the more frustrating because I know it can be fixed. That is my goal: to fix this deformity. To do this I need $19,000. I have been saving and striving to be as thrifty as possible. I've made a $3,400 payment towards surgery with Dr. Suporn in Thailand this December. I currently have $2400 of the remaining $15600. Despite this progress, I can not reach this goal on my own. Which is why I'm here, asking anyone who reads this for any help they are able and willing to provide, even if it's only sharing a link on social media. In any case, thank you for taking the time to read this.