Brid AC's top surgery fundraiser

Hi, I’m Brid! I’m a trans* person, and I need some help funding my gender affirming top surgery in the UK. I am acquiring the surgery through private healthcare, as to get it on the NHS could take up to seven years for a first appointment. I’m crowdfunding up to £11,000 to pay for relevant evaluations and consultation, as well as the surgery itself, and recovery.

Finding the trans community in London has been life-changing for me. The last few years have brought me a sense of belonging and peace I have never experienced elsewhere, and I now feel confident that getting this surgery is the right choice for me. I’m sure there will be some people reading this who will feel perplexed by it; I know that parts of the mainstream media suggest that gender affirming surgeries have become ‘fashionable’ or part of a move to enforce the gender binary.

But bodily autonomy is not a trend, and neither is the legacy of trans solidarity and trans histories. Nowhere have I felt more accepted than in the trans community, and nowhere have I been met with more curiosity and joy. This surgery is something I have considered for years, and it feels essential for me, but I also see it as part of a lineage I am inheriting from elder butches and trans-mascs like Leslie Feinberg, Jack Halberstam and Paul Preciado - people who have shown me what my future could look like, as well as the richness of our trans pasts.

In my experience, trans spaces hold complex understandings of how big, unfathomable and beautiful gender expression can be, and how real it is for all of us, no matter how we identify. I am proud of who I am, and ready to embrace this next chapter of my life, and I hope you can help me with that!

Thank you in advance to you, my community; to lesbians, trann!es, drag queens, kings and things, women, feminists, dyk3s and trans-f@gs, butches, gays, all my bisexual girlies and sweet enbies and gender queers - and I hope that you know that any and all contributions will be appreciated from the bottom of my tiny butch heart.

I’m looking for those of you with the big bucks jobs to come to the front and show your allyship, but I also know that times are tough right now, so if you can’t afford to donate then sharing this link would be brilliant. If I raise the total or more, extra funds will go to other trans friends who are seeking gender affirming care or to charities supporting people seeking asylum.

Love,

Brid