Help fund GenderCare appointments to begin transitioning

Hey

My name is Sam, and I'm a 25 year old transwoman from the UK.

For the longest time, as long as I can remember, I've never felt *right* in my own body - like there was something wrong, like the way it grew never matched who I really was. I was never able to fully explore this, whether I was dissuaded by family members or by society at large I grew to believe that everyone at least sort of felt this way. But, I'm finally ready - emotionally and mentally - to accept who I am. The only problem is, my body doesn't seem to want to agree with everything else.

In my journey of discovering myself, I've been placed on the waiting list for a Gender Identity Clinic, but waiting times in the UK are long - I mean really long - and if I want to wait for the NHS to catch up with the rest of me I'm looking at a bare minimum of a seven year wait, most likely longer. Obviously, this is unideal so I explored my options to speed up the process somewhat

Enter GenderCare:

From their own website, GenderCare "is a network of individual healthcare practitioners, all qualified professionals experienced in the gender field.". They allow people access to both gender dysphoria diagnoses and HRT prescriptions with a significantly faster timescale than the NHS. The caveat? It's expensive to get started.

I'm looking to collect £875.00 to help fund the following appointments with GenderCare:

Initial assessment with Dr Stuart Lorimer - £400.00 (appointment to get the diagnosis and set up the groundwork for accessing HRT and in future, surgery)

Initial assessment with Dr Peter Hammond - £275.00 (appointment with an endocrinologist to get bloodwork done & hormone levels read for pathway to obtain HRT)

Followup appointment with Dr Stuart Lorimer - £200.00 (follow up appointment to ensure that the care I'm getting is sufficient and other checks and balances)

Thankfully, through a Shared Care Agreement (which my GP has already told me that they can and will do with this establishment) I won't have to pay for any further bloodwork or prescriptions, just the followup appointments in the future. This means that the startup funds for this *should* be the majority of what I need to pay.

This would be life-changing for me; I'd finally be able to start to feel like I'm in a body that actually reflects who I am - something I've been dreaming about for years.

Any donations at all, and any support at all, be it sharing this fundraiser or just words of encouragement would be so greatly welcome and appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

With love

Sam