FTM Top Surgery for an Artist - FUNDED!

My name is Iram Withencroft. I am a 32 year old transman. I have known I was male since I was a child, but didn’t know exactly what that meant until I was well into college, when I finally had words to describe myself and my identity. Transgender. Transman. Pronouns. He him. Man. When I was young, I tried to run around with the other boys and my older brother with my shirt off, but was quickly shunned and even punished by my mom for doing so. I didn’t understand what was so different. My shirt was wet from the water balloons and grass clippings! I didn’t want to wear it anymore. All the other guys took their shirts off.  Puberty was an absolute nightmare. My body changed in terrifying ways, and my periods were painful and heavy. Not only was everything completely foreign to me, doctors continually told me that the pain, which was so intense I would vomit for the first few days, was normal! I felt hopeless, and suffered in silence for many, many years. I tried birth control, my chest grew bigger, and I had violent mood swings. I couldn’t ever seem to dress in a manner that made me comfortable with myself and my gender, so I wore a lot of baggy clothes. I also had problems with my weight and I was bullied by kids who were just as confused about me as I was. All of it led to deep depression and suicidal ideation. I left California for college in Alaska. Somewhere far from home where I could discover myself. While learning about transgender people in a women’s study class, I started to feel like maybe that was not just some foreign concept, that was me. I saw videos of transmen talking about identity and transition and finally I recognized something that made me have a spark of hope again. I met a wonderful woman who embraced my identity and me, my whole self. My thesis, during my final year of my bachelors of fine arts was all about feeling trapped between male and female, and in existing in this strange place of appearing female and feeling male, and transgender body image. My advisor had told me to not make it about something personal and certainly not make it about myself. What did I do? I made it about being trans, something I was currently going through, not something I had worked through and overcome. It was about dysphoria and of nude drawings from referenced photos of myself no less. He had been right in thinking that it would be too hard. It was monumental. The board of advisors for the college was made up primarily of older, conservative white men who had never even heard the word transgender much less how to grapple an understanding of the concept.  I cried after critiques in front of all my peers and I thought I wouldn’t make it. But I did. I made it to the end and through it all they were absolutely stunned by the work they witnessed. My advisor said it was simultaneously the worst and best experience he’d had being in the advisor program at UAA. By the end, the work had helped me come out, decide to transition, and create five visual pieces that helped convey the absolute agony of feeling stuck in the wrong body. Even if you’re not able to help me on my journey, I’d love to share the work with you. Here is a link to the work: Please be advised that the artwork is graphic. Graphic nudity, some violence. [Click Here to View]  I graduated college, my dog passed away, I stopped talking to my mom because she willfully refused to embrace my identity and our relationship became toxic, my fiance of three years and I eloped in Maryland when the supreme court ruled that all states would have to honor “gay” marriage certificates issued in other states, I unexpectedly deepened my relationship with my father, I decided to transition on HRT to work towards top surgery and I started taking hormones. It was the only course of action I could take. I couldn't keep living a lie. I spent too many years living my life how I thought others wanted me to. Once I was able to properly start my T I felt right, my mood lifted and my period pains, which had always been an absolute handicap nearly a week every single month for the last decade, began to lessen. My voice deepened, hair grew in on my face and started falling out in other places, and my relationship with my wife strengthened as she supported me through everything. This went on for about six months and then it was time to leave Alaska, and head back to California, where my family was. My dad delighted in welcoming me back, and as for the rest of the family, well I sort of showed up to my cousin's wedding and said, “This is my wife,” and silently hoped no one would ask about my depending voice and slightly fuzzier chin. Back in my home state, I got my name legally changed, got state healthcare, found a trans specialist doctor, found a wonderful therapist who helped me  heal my emotional wounds, finally came out to my extended family through a letter attached to a Christmas card of all things, showed my thesis in Ohio in a huge transgender collaboration show and began researching top surgery, but my body had other plans. After being on T for several years at this point my periods, even if I wasn’t bleeding, were still insanely painful and frequent often affecting my daily life. Eventually, after several doctors, the trans specialist diagnosed me with endometriosis and it was decided that I should have a hysterectomy. I was scheduled to get the surgery in California when my dad fell ill with cancer and had to move to a full time care facility and during the last year I spent in the state several things happened to upset all my plans. I couldn’t stay in the house we’d lived with my dad, because the landlord had let repairs slip too much over the years and contractors said he had to rip it apart to fix everything, after we had worked out a deal to stay in the house after my dad moved out. This left us just two weeks to figure out where we were going to live. I couldn’t stay with any of my family, and my wife’s family lived all the way in Michigan.  We tried desperately to find a new place, but in such a short amount of time we couldn’t do it and ended up moving cross country to stay with my wife’s family until we could get a place of our own. It was during this time that my dad’s condition worsened so I was flying back and forth to California to visit him, while trying to make money to rent our own place and work on reestablishing my business; I’m a freelance artist. Shortly after finding a place we could afford, my dad passed away. With this move to a new state I had to start all over again for my hysterectomy and all my other medical needs. I was finally approved by state healthcare in May for my hysterectomy and had the surgery after fighting tooth and nail for over a year with the insurance company that I did in fact need this surgery. I'm so grateful I had a wonderful healthcare provider fight for me, who personally insisted to the medical board that this was a necessary surgery. During the long wait with my insurance I prepped vigorously for the surgery. I started working out, eating better, getting adequate sleep, I lost 60 pounds and started to see my body take shape from something foreign to something that felt like me. Me Three years ago versus now. [60lbs later/Weight Loss]  During my surgery, they found that I actually had an enlarged uterus. When you are on testosterone it actually causes your female organs to shrink up and go dormant. Mine had not. Mine had merely shrunk slightly from where it was before, so to medical providers looking at a uterus, it looked normal. Normal for a cisgender female. Which means before testosterone, my uterus was enormous and had put pressure on all my internal organs. They also found a growing fibroid, cysts and endometriosis. Thank god for the end of that nightmare! I’ve since recovered and can now finally start focusing on the thing I’ve been wanting to do since even before I started T, top surgery. Sadly, the double move in one year first from California to Michigan, and then from staying with family to my own place and the plane trips back and forth to visit my dad in the hospital and to attend his funeral depleted any savings I had and put me into further debt. I can’t even afford to pay for my college loans. I haven’t been able to recover financially since then and I’ve only been making enough to keep my head above water, let alone fund a 6k surgery that my insurance deems only as cosmetic.  I’ve done all the legwork, selected a doctor, Dr. Kenneth Wolf of West Bloomfield, Michigan, had a consultation and gotten a quote for the procedure. Compared to surgeries in other states I’ve researched $6,400 isn’t that bad but I know realistically on my own I couldn’t raise that much without help for a very long time and I can’t wait any longer. I'm asking for $6600 to help cover the percentage that GFM will take at the end as well as donation fees. I can see an end in sight. The more weight I’ve lost the more clear it has become to me that I have to have this surgery. I used to have double D breasts and now they are weird saggy bags, that flap when I run. Which is what this is all about. I don't blame anyone for where my life is. It's been a series of really tough events one after another, and I'm trying to pick up the pieces. I need help, I am a proud man and this is painful to ask for, but I can’t do this alone. So here I am, laying myself bare and begging you help me cut these bags off of my chest. I hope that this story reaches as many people as possible. If you can't donate, please share. I want people to hear more stories of what we can go through trying to be come are true selves. If this helps even one person understand themselves or a loved one better that in itself would be an achievement. If you have a question about my story, want to know more, or have general trans questions I'm open answering them. Thank you for your consideration.