Daniel's top surgery and new start for 2023

We're looking for help with the costs of top surgery for our 17 year old so that he can start life at uni in February 2023 as a new man with a new identity.

2022 has been a big year in Daniel's transition and in terms of life milestones. He's not your average teenager and 2022 has not been an average year.

In the last twelve months, he has fully adopted and legalised his new identity as Daniel, started on testosterone, navigated the stresses of completing Grade 12 , faced evacuation from our house and temporary relocation due to major flooding, during which time we also lost our family dog.

This would be a lot for any adult.

Yet Daniel has done all this with pre-existing diagnoses of Autism, depression and anxiety and still managed to excel in school academically and on stage under the spotlight as he is a confident and very able performer.

The undercurrent to all of this apparent success is the continued disassociation with these achievements due to the gender dysphoria that he has been experiencing since his early teens. The fact that he doesn't feel comfortable in his own skin means that he also struggles to own his achievements and celebrate his successes.

In 2023, he will start University in Brisbane (while still living at home), studying Bio Med with a view to later moving into medicine and he would love to start Uni life with no blurred lines around his identity. Now that the testosterone treatment is beginning to have an effect on his physical presentation as well as his speaking / singing voice, he feels that top surgery is the final piece of the puzzle that will allow him to be accepted without question as male by his new Uni peers.

We would love any help to get 2023 off to the strongest start for Daniel, with surgery booked for 4 January. In Australia, top surgery is not covered by Medicare, despite the massive mental health implications of living with gender dysphoria. Even with Private Health cover, the costs of the surgery will still total over $10,000. We will cover some of the surgery costs and support him emotionally and physically through the surgery and recovery. While Daniel has some savings that he has amassed from years of working as a busker, this is not enough and will leave him with no savings with which to start his uni life.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Daniel has such a spark and could be even brighter once he's fully able to feel like himself. If you want to see him in action earlier in 2022, check out these two videos where he was a performer in Creative Generation, where he was a featured vocalist.

Eyes of the Tiger - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eWWVy-WQZI

The Voice Within - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYotW2SYRHU. (ironically, this song even talks about the conflict of the inner voice and how it can be your best friend to help you through)