Hey Y'all!

My name is Cece (She/They) and I'm a 25 year old transwoman living in Austin, Tx. For a little about me, I love biking, reading, hula hooping, and have developed an odd obsession with all things related to colors! Currently, I work as a barista, which is where I get my insurance from, and dream of helping people better their lives through colors, mindfulness, and art! Most of my friends would probably tell you I'm incredibly driven and passionate about life as a whole and I hope that through coordinated community activism we can collectivly create positive impacts to the world around us! 

Overall, this fundraiser's purpose is to help raise money for gender reassignment surgery so that I can finally live as my authentic self with the peace of mind I've been fighting for my whole life.

Here’s my story and more details about the surgery

I can still remember the first time someone gendered me as a girl, it was on the playground during recess when I was probably about 9 or 10. Although I don't remember much from my childhood, I can still viscerally remember being called that name, ‘girly’. At that moment, I felt like I was truly being seen for the first time in my life. It really made me question everything people had been telling me about myself up until that point.


I can't help but wonder if the girl who would call me ‘girly’ every recess would laugh if she ever read this page. That I find unlikely. We were friends for a while throughout elementary and intermediate school and as the years strolled by she would eventually stop calling me by my beloved name, ‘girly’.


Maybe as I went through puberty and was forced into more masculine roles, the “girly” status no longer felt appropriate, nor obtainable.


Hearing my voice drop was the first thing that made me realize how bad things we're going to get for me. I tried so hard consciously and desperately to get my voice to go back up. The waves of depression, gender dysphoria,  and panic started to hit me like a wildfire running over a seemingly endless amount of tinder. I felt as if I was a decaying clock watching myself tick away as my body shifted forms and I was becoming something I didn’t recognize.


I tried to escape some of the torment I was experiencing by dressing more gender variantly in clothes that society at the time deemed "acceptable" for me to wear. My non-conformity led me to being harassed and assaulted frequently until I found myself with a group of people who would fight to protect me. With the social struggles I was experiencing and poor mental health, doing good in school was never a reasonable option. later I would discover that puberty blockers existed, leaving me wondering what life might have looked like if I only had the access.

I remembered around this time all I wanted to do was grow my hair long and paint my nails, but with strict conservative rules, I was never allowed to.

(Me now)

Instead, I was forced to repress those aspects of myself, which became a brutally traumatic experience. I knew I was a girl, but I also knew that transitioning wouldn't be accepted or understood. Being underage, all I could do was wait. The cost was my sanity.  


Throughout middle and high school I would spend my time shuffling in and out of various mental hospitals due to being suicidal with no one able to afford me a solution --only push me a cocktail of pills I knew very well wouldn’t work. I started to develop a huge distrust of authority, as I knew that I was trapped in this highly abusive relationship with society as a whole.


I began to not be willing to compromise my beliefs and how I felt so I ran away from home.


Being homeless finally gave me the space I needed to fully explore my gender, which made me 100% sure that I needed to transition, or I would literally die. I started seeking medical help after I turned 18 when I could do so legally without anyone’s permission and could afford it. I’ve been medically and socially transitioning since I was about 19 (6 years total now).


I spent a couple of years on and off couch surfing and living out of my car while I was working my way through community college. During these early times, I was still being called the F word frequently, spat at, told I didn’t know how to dress, that I was crazy, and that I would never actually look like/be a girl. Things started to get better though. My living situation stabilized, I got nearly a 4.0 and transferred to one of the best universities in Texas (UT Austin), which I just graduated from in December 2020.


The grass isn’t always greener on the other side however…


Austin was always my escape. After visiting it once or twice I realized that people in Austin as a whole were a lot more accepting to trans people (which is why I worked so hard to go to UT in the first place). Truth be told, however, moving to Austin didn’t make things too much better initially like I had expected. I had no friends, still had a huge amount of body dysmorphia, and every time I got misgendered my self-esteem would plummet below the floor. 


Not too long after moving, one of my friends came to visit and we decided to go to a bar. The bouncer who took my ID at the door questioned whose ID I had. I ironically found this to be somewhat of a compliment as my ID had a picture from well before I started transitioning. After we went inside, I used the bathroom and was surprised to find the bouncer waiting for me when I came out.


He asked me for my ID and what my sex was.


Concerned for my safety and flustered that someone would literally ask me what my sex was, I refused to show him. He then told me I was not allowed to use the woman’s restroom. I told him that was discriminatory. He said it wasn’t. I disagreed. He kicked me out of the bar. From there I started litigation which ultimately resulted in the bar enacting trans inclusive policies. The end result of the incident, however, did have a huge cost. It led to me holding onto a mountain of internalized trauma and, although I haven’t talked about it until now, a suicide attempt that left me back in the mental hospital.


You might think that this would have caused an uproar, but that's not the reality. It was me vs. the world, as it often times is with trans people and bathrooms. Luckily at the time, I was able to leverage the media to some effect, but I really had no idea what I was doing. If I had been in a better mental state back then I would have done something a lot different. At that moment, however, I was alone, focused on healing, and literally not dying.


I’m happy to say that since then I’ve at least managed to change my birth certificate to match my name and gender, but I’m still working on building up the funds and navigating the processes to change the rest of my legal documents. 


My depression really didn’t get to a manageable level until after I got facial feminization surgery last year.



(picture of me right before a shortly after FFS)


Actually, since the procedure, I’ve become a lot happier than I thought imaginable. I’m almost entirely gendered correctly in most instances and have been able to move past a lot of my internalized traumas and struggles. I’ve even gotten to a point that I can say I love myself! Something that before the surgery I thought would be impossible.

 
I remember when being called girly was the most euphoric thing that could happen to me. And well… It still is in a way!


After getting facial feminization surgery, I can tell that getting gender reassignment surgery will completely transform my life. Getting gender reassignment surgery will allow me to connect fully with my body as well as my sexuality, which is something that I overall avoid due to not having had bottom surgery.


Overall, I think the biggest impact that getting gender reassignment surgery will have on me will be my perspective, finally having the peace of mind/self love I've been looking for, and being able to live my life as my authentic self


I've also spent a long time imagining what it would be like to be able to wear a bikini with absolutely no fear to a beach. You wouldn’t think something as simple as a bikini would make access to an entire area of life as complicated and odd as it is for me. 


I really hate asking for donations, considering how much everyone is struggling during these times, but unfortunately, this is how most trans people are having to pay for their surgeries. We sadly are living in a very broken system where people's health care burdens are the number one cause of bankruptcies in the US. If you can afford to donate please do, I will seriously mean the world to me!

 

Overall, this is what the donations will pay for:

 

Surgery: 5,500$

Rent, food, travel (1 month and a short trip for a consultation): 4,000$

Therapists/doctors visits/consultations: 1,000$

After Care and Medications: 500$

 

Total: 11,000$

 

If there’s anything left over it will go towards my legal documents and top surgery (which would be almost fully covered after hitting the deductible on my insurance). If there's any left after that I will be donating it back to Outyouth

https://www.outyouth.org/

I choose this organization because they are helping kids who are going through similar situations that I was and still am going through now that I'm older. Even if you don’t donate to this page, I highly recommend you donate to Outyouth. Trans people in particular are incredibly vulnerable to suicide, homelessness, sexual assault, and abuse. for trans youth, it can be the difference between life and death. Of course, Outyouth helps all members of the LGBTQIA+ community, not just trans youth.

 

Timeline


I’m expecting to have bottom surgery with Dr. Avanessian hopefully sometime by the end of the year. I have a consultation with her in mid-July and was told that surgery typically is only a few months after that. Before the surgery, however, I still need to get three letters of referral (as soon as I possibly can) for both the insurance companies to cover part of the procedure and for clinic's office themselves to be willing to go forward. 


Final Words


I know that life isn’t a fairy tale, and, in all honesty, a lot of my life has been a complete nightmare. I know this procedure won’t fix all my problems, but I also know it will give me the peace of mind I have been looking for and my body will finally fully resonate with who I am as a person and spirit. I am really excited to close this chapter of my life, finish healing, and start living life as the person I know I am.


Thank you for taking the time to read my story! If you're able to donate, even a small amount would mean the world to me and greatly impact and change my life. Thank you for your support!
 

I will be periodically following up with updates and videos on what’s going on as it happens!


Feel free to share this Gofundme on your profile(s) or where you see reasonably fit!


Thank you again for reading!!!


With love,

Cece