Help M. Get Top Surgery!

TW: gender dysphoria, transphobia

Hello! My name is M. (they/them) and I'm a nonbinary transmasculine person. Don't know what that means? Here is a resource! https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-non-binary-people-how-to-be-respectful-and-supportive

My entire life, I've felt out of place. I didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to explain my discomfort—why I felt alienated from girls, why I felt 'other,' why I never felt comfortable in my own body—until I left my small hometown and moved out of state for college. I met other queer people and felt like I was seeing myself in the mirror for the first time; I began to study gender and I began to take small steps and try out new pronouns, new names, and new modes of presenting myself within the loving community I had found.

I got my first binder in the fall of 2019. Although my chest still never seemed flat enough, I started feeling more comfortable in my clothing. I quietly began my social transition, struggling to overcome my self-doubt and internalized transphobia with the help of gender-affirming therapy. It's taken a lot of work to get to where I am now—M., someone who doesn't feel gender and who loves themself, more than ever before. In January of 2021, I started taking low-dose testosterone, to gradually bring me closer to the image of myself that exists in my mind.

While my journey so far has brought me so much joy, it's made me feel more resolute in my identity and with that, brought intensifying top dysphoria. My binder gives me chronic back pain and so, so much sweat. I recently began to attempt to bind with tape, but it's tearing up my skin and frankly, my chest is a bit too large to have much success. My chest just doesn't feel like my own and it feels more and more urgent every day to do something about it. I spend entire mornings, afternoons, and evenings in complete distress, spiraling, feeling hopeless that I'll never get to have a body that feels like home to me—but I've realized that's not the case. I just have to take the first step.

In December, I'll be graduating from college. I already feel like I've lost so much time to hating myself and I just want to be free. I want to feel the softness of t-shirts against my skin; I want to swim without being grossly reminded that my mind and body don't quite meet; and I want to have the energy to be a better version of myself—a version that isn't perpetually tearing themself down over something that, until now, has been out of their control.

I've had my consultation and booked my top surgery for late August, which has an estimated cost of $8550 between the procedure itself and aftercare (I've had to adjust my goal slightly to account for the roughly 3% fee that GoFundMe takes out at the end and will continue to update it to reflect all funding acquired through other means). I love my family very much, but at the moment I'm writing this they are not being supportive—meaning that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to need a lot of help.

Any donation, any boost, and any kind words would mean the world to me. I'm proud of the person I've become—soft, empathetic, strong, and so very queer—and I'm done feeling ashamed. I'm done worrying about the space I take up. I'm done feeling like I need to justify myself to the people I love. 

I'm ready to continue becoming me.

Alternative means of donating (to avoid GoFundMe's ~3% fee) include:

CashApp - $mkerlan
PayPal - @mkerlan
Venmo - @madisonk26

*** As a note, any remaining funds leftover will be redistributed to transition funds for other trans folks. ***