Help Harper fund her Gender Reassignment Surgery

My name is Harper.

I'm a trans woman in dire need of funds to help pay for Gender Reassignement Surgery, or GRS, in order to combat the severe gender dysphoria and depression that I experience.

For those who may not know, Gender Dysphoria is a condition that many people who identify as trans experience - that your gender identity conflicts with your biological sex. In simpler terms, feeling distress and sadness due to your body not feeling or looking as it should.

Gender is a lot like a pair of shoes - If you have on a good, comfortable, well fitting pair, you don’t notice it or think about it. As you walk around you aren’t constantly thinking about your shoes and the comfort, it’s just there and fine and normal and it doesn’t concern you one single bit.

But if your shoes are too small and tight or there is a rock in them it’s all you can think about. Every step is annoying and miserable and you don’t want to do anything else until you fix this damned rock.

That's what Gender Dysphoria feels like.

After coming out to my family and friends as Transgender in January 2019, my transition so far has been nothing short of incredible: the support and love I have recieved, as well as my results from Hormone Therapy, has been more than I ever could have dreamed. However this comes at a contrast with the increasingly severe gender dysphoria that I experience regarding what is between my legs.

It had always been my plan to have GRS done on the NHS as part of the Gender Identity Clinic I have been on the waiting list for (for 2 years so far), but the prospect of up to a 10-15 year wait, due to the disastrous state of Trans healthcare in the UK, has driven me to seek it through other means - namely through private care.

I dream every night of the day that I will one day wake up in a hospital bed, and my body will finally feel right, and I will be able to walk out into the world as the person I was meant to be.

But the reality of my situation, as a Uni student with little disposable income, threatens this dream, and makes my dysphoria all the worse - which is why I am asking for help in funding Private Surgery to make this dream a reality, as soon as it can become one - and until it does , my dysphoria will continue to put a damper on what will be the prime of my life. 

I am making steps to make my private surgery a possibility- due to the COVID situation I was unable get a job at Uni, but as soon as I returned home from took on a summer job and am working as much as possible, saving little by little, pound by pound - but this amount of money may not be surmountable by that, which is why I need as much help as I can get. My parents' income also took a large hit due to COVID, so they are also struggling to help me pay for it.

Any donations, of any size, would be so appreciated- large or small; whether 1 pound or 20. It all serves to make my journey to becoming the woman I was meant to be that much closer; that dream a little less out of reach.

Harper x