Hello everyone! My name is Bec Barner and I’m a 22 year old transgender man living in South Texas. To be totally honest, my journey has not been an easy one for me. I had always felt like I had been born into the wrong body and by the age of 16 years old, I decided that I wanted to begin to transition. Without any support or understanding from my parents, I began my transition to become my true self. At 18, I left home immediately after graduating high school and began taking testosterone. I finally began to feel like myself. Last year at 21 years old, I decided to make the very difficult decision to have my top surgery regardless of my financial situation, which was that I was uninsured and without any savings to afford the surgery. But I had to do it. I did it because I did not and could not wait any longer to look at myself in the mirror and be happy with who I saw. I have no regrets about having the surgery and have worked extremely hard to be able to pay it off as quickly as possible. I put the balance on three different credit cards and even risked healing from surgery appropriately because I had to go back to work to continue to pay my bills. I’ve had little to no family support in any way and have always depended on myself and the kindness of strangers and friends to help me become who I am today. I’m not sharing those struggles with you to make you feel sorry for me. I am sharing them because I really have come to a point where I need some financial support.

The person I am today is very passionate about helping people, especially other trans people, by sharing my story and advocating for equality through one of my current jobs. I would really love to make that my career but right now, I am working multiple jobs to pay rent and bills, as well as continue to pay off my surgery on those credit cards gaining interest. I want to be able to catch up to paying off my balance so that I can focus more on finding a full-time career that will make me financially secure for myself. Anyone that knows me will tell you that I’m a very hard worker, that I care about people, and I love helping others. If you could help me right now, I can guarantee your support will help me reach my goals and dreams of being a proud, independent, confident, transgender man who will pay forward all of the kindness I’ve been given to make a difference for others.