Help Holly's Reflection Smile back! (FFS)
Donation protected
Hi, people of gofundme. A little introduction and background.
My name is Holly, I'm a trans woman "living" in the U.K. I use quotations there because I'm not living, not really. I'm breathing. I haven't lived. I just turned 28, after years of off-colour half-jokes that I was going to join "club 27". A real milestone. It seriously is. Many trans individuals don't get to thrive when they deserve to. I'm not sure that I do, but I am here to ask you for a chance.
Today I am taking my own advice for a change. I'm creating this fundraiser to ask for help, anything that you can give. Be that money, sharing this post elsewhere, to your friends, your Twitter, your platform. Whatever you are willing. Even reaching out to me to show support. I need change, I need to live. I need to know what it's like to go outside and not hear "sir", or worse.
I don't even care about dating at this point. Surgery to create a vagina feels like a pipe-dream right now. I need help with this first, because I cannot live like this anymore. I can work towards fixing such a rarely seen part of myself when I can face a mirror, because this is urgent.
Before we get into the weeds. Here's a rare picture of me smiling, all filtered up playing with some silly app on my phone. Family photos in the background, including one of myself dating back to when I was in high school. This wasn't taken for the fundraiser, I just feel it captures something. It also serves to show a change.
I would first like to give you my "coming out" story.
I "wanted" to "be a girl" since I was as young as 7. I have those memories. The memories of sitting in primary school wondering why I wasn't. It felt unfair, but I guessed that all boys sometimes felt that way, and all girls did too. That we simply didn't talk about it, because it felt embarrassing. At that age, dysphoria can be subtle and confusing.
I remember secretly playing with the "girls" toys at every opportunity growing up. Through either a family friend's daughters or my mother's child-minding career. My dysphoria has always been focused on my body. It's a coincidence that I enjoyed feminine activities.
I knew I was trans from the age of 13. Back then, the word was barely spoken, but I had already found it thanks to the internet. Through asking Google about the ways I felt. My secret confidant. Dysphoria at this age had become no joke.
I remember at the age of 15, Kim Petras was on "This Morning". You might know of her today through her music. She was being interviewed about going through gender affirmation surgery, at 16. At the time, she was the youngest person to go through it. I was blown away and filled with hope, completely inspired...
... Until I gave up trying to come out to my mother. She thought I was trying to tell her that I was gay, but because I was too full of shame at the time to use my words. All I could do was tell her "I'm not gay, I'm in pain. Please keep guessing, I can't say it." She would also guess cross-dresser, I couldn't give her anything but "no" because that's not what I was. It would later turn out that she didn't even know what transgender was back then. She wasn't equipped to help me.
My mother still feels pain for this, but it isn't her fault. It's something society is only now getting better at raising awareness of.
I repressed, it didn't bother me for a few years. Repression can be magic like that. I didn't tell a soul that I was trans until I was 22. I had repressed and refused help with my declining mental health at every turn. I didn't vent to friends. Nothing. Not about this, not about anything. Later that year, I would hit my limit. I had a mental breakdown. I came out to my girlfriend, lost my relationship with her. Dropped out of university and became suicidal. All these pressures manifested physically, my body broke out in full-body plaque psoriasis.
Dysphoria at this stage had fully matured, it made me question if I was in purgatory, or even hell. This is not hyperbole. I lost touch with reality for a time. I lost so many years of my life to video game addiction, using any excuse to escape from facing my situation.
Therapy and HRT helped a lot. They not only gave me hope, but helped me re-contextualise. I am now pursuing a career in mental health, in hopes I can help others. The same way that my therapist, Rhianna, and Dr Alok Kanojia, a streamer/psychologist, helped me. I can't thank either of them enough, and one of them doesn't even know I exist!
It's 2021, and my body still hasn't recovered from the psoriatic breakout. I still have full-body plaque psoriasis, but I am nowhere near as raw. Instead of a few islands of healthy skin, there are patches of inflammation, and most of the skin is healthy. I'll admit that thanks to HRT, I also have a much cuter waist now. Though I don't fancy my luck on onlyfans, let me tell you that :').
One more story, and then I promise I will get to the point.
I hit my milestone, I survived my dark humour. I survived my feared destiny of contributing to several statistics. I survived. Yet as the clock struck midnight, bringing us to the 24th of May 2021, all I could do was sob uncontrollably. I cried for how little progress I had made in becoming who I need to be.
To look in the mirror and smile. Heck, not even smile. But to catch my reflection and feel content, or even indifferent. A feeling I'm sure many trans people can relate to.
Believe it or not, I wasn't going to open with an X-Factor sob story. I wanted this to be about positivity, but my fingers wanted to tell my story instead. To be authentic after hiding my face, and even often voice from online friends, and people I meet. It's sick that I felt relieved having to wear a mask outside this past year.
The campaign image for my fundraiser is something you can't know how much I hesitated about. It may sound shallow, but feelings of deep shame bubbled to the surface when including the photo on the left. What you see is the frontal shot taken for the consultation with Facialteam. My brows are a mess, my hair and complexion dishevelled. A low point, one that I admit I have a habit of bouncing back to.
That was the morning of my 27th birthday, one year ago. I woke up, took the required photos, and readied my consultation. I didn't send it until the day of my 28th birthday... Why? My family was struggling, and I didn't want to add any more stress. It's illogical, it was not smart of me, but I did it.
The more time passed, the more complications put me off. Covid, my grandfather's new psychosis & vascular dementia diagnosis, putting pressure on my mother. I told myself, "I have waited this long to live, I can wait for this to calm down." The milestone marked out by another year on my birthday hit me like a ton of bricks, and I just did it. Sent, finished.
Let's move forward.
The goal of this fundraiser is to raise money for my Facial Feminisation Surgery.
I have included the quote I received below for transparency.
The total comes to roughly £38,000. This is not including flights to and from Marbella, where the surgery will take place. I set the goal for the fundraiser at £40,000 as a round number. This is to account for gofundme's fees. Although it would be beyond amazing to meet the fund goal, it is neither necessary nor at all my expectation. Anything you can give will be life-changing. I should be paying as much of it as possible.
With regard to the "VIP package", this is not something I asked for, and will be asking for a cheaper alternative. It may be mandatory for safety. As it refers to transport to and from the hospital & post-operative care. I would happily recover in an alley if it meant I got to start living.
I find it hard to ask people for anything usually. I struggle to ask for help, and financial help has been a big "no-no" until now. I can't do this alone, but I must do it. I cannot wait any longer. My face informs the way I interact with the world. I have no confidence and struggle to function in my day to day life with the dysphoria attached to it.
From all my research over the years into who to approach for surgery, and how much it would cost. I was prepared to maybe come up with the expected £20,000 I had seen from other people's quotes online. Through my own money, supportive members of my family, and a loan my mother would take out for me. But the reality is it will cost almost double that. I cannot do this alone, and so I am asking for your help.
Donating won't only be changing my life, you're helping me seize a life.
If you would like to reach out to me privately, you can find me at
Email: [email redacted]
Discord: 23#1445
I deleted most social media for mental health reasons.
My name is Holly, I'm a trans woman "living" in the U.K. I use quotations there because I'm not living, not really. I'm breathing. I haven't lived. I just turned 28, after years of off-colour half-jokes that I was going to join "club 27". A real milestone. It seriously is. Many trans individuals don't get to thrive when they deserve to. I'm not sure that I do, but I am here to ask you for a chance.
Today I am taking my own advice for a change. I'm creating this fundraiser to ask for help, anything that you can give. Be that money, sharing this post elsewhere, to your friends, your Twitter, your platform. Whatever you are willing. Even reaching out to me to show support. I need change, I need to live. I need to know what it's like to go outside and not hear "sir", or worse.
I don't even care about dating at this point. Surgery to create a vagina feels like a pipe-dream right now. I need help with this first, because I cannot live like this anymore. I can work towards fixing such a rarely seen part of myself when I can face a mirror, because this is urgent.
Before we get into the weeds. Here's a rare picture of me smiling, all filtered up playing with some silly app on my phone. Family photos in the background, including one of myself dating back to when I was in high school. This wasn't taken for the fundraiser, I just feel it captures something. It also serves to show a change.
I would first like to give you my "coming out" story.
I "wanted" to "be a girl" since I was as young as 7. I have those memories. The memories of sitting in primary school wondering why I wasn't. It felt unfair, but I guessed that all boys sometimes felt that way, and all girls did too. That we simply didn't talk about it, because it felt embarrassing. At that age, dysphoria can be subtle and confusing.
I remember secretly playing with the "girls" toys at every opportunity growing up. Through either a family friend's daughters or my mother's child-minding career. My dysphoria has always been focused on my body. It's a coincidence that I enjoyed feminine activities.
I knew I was trans from the age of 13. Back then, the word was barely spoken, but I had already found it thanks to the internet. Through asking Google about the ways I felt. My secret confidant. Dysphoria at this age had become no joke.
I remember at the age of 15, Kim Petras was on "This Morning". You might know of her today through her music. She was being interviewed about going through gender affirmation surgery, at 16. At the time, she was the youngest person to go through it. I was blown away and filled with hope, completely inspired...
... Until I gave up trying to come out to my mother. She thought I was trying to tell her that I was gay, but because I was too full of shame at the time to use my words. All I could do was tell her "I'm not gay, I'm in pain. Please keep guessing, I can't say it." She would also guess cross-dresser, I couldn't give her anything but "no" because that's not what I was. It would later turn out that she didn't even know what transgender was back then. She wasn't equipped to help me.
My mother still feels pain for this, but it isn't her fault. It's something society is only now getting better at raising awareness of.
I repressed, it didn't bother me for a few years. Repression can be magic like that. I didn't tell a soul that I was trans until I was 22. I had repressed and refused help with my declining mental health at every turn. I didn't vent to friends. Nothing. Not about this, not about anything. Later that year, I would hit my limit. I had a mental breakdown. I came out to my girlfriend, lost my relationship with her. Dropped out of university and became suicidal. All these pressures manifested physically, my body broke out in full-body plaque psoriasis.
Dysphoria at this stage had fully matured, it made me question if I was in purgatory, or even hell. This is not hyperbole. I lost touch with reality for a time. I lost so many years of my life to video game addiction, using any excuse to escape from facing my situation.
Therapy and HRT helped a lot. They not only gave me hope, but helped me re-contextualise. I am now pursuing a career in mental health, in hopes I can help others. The same way that my therapist, Rhianna, and Dr Alok Kanojia, a streamer/psychologist, helped me. I can't thank either of them enough, and one of them doesn't even know I exist!
It's 2021, and my body still hasn't recovered from the psoriatic breakout. I still have full-body plaque psoriasis, but I am nowhere near as raw. Instead of a few islands of healthy skin, there are patches of inflammation, and most of the skin is healthy. I'll admit that thanks to HRT, I also have a much cuter waist now. Though I don't fancy my luck on onlyfans, let me tell you that :').
One more story, and then I promise I will get to the point.
I hit my milestone, I survived my dark humour. I survived my feared destiny of contributing to several statistics. I survived. Yet as the clock struck midnight, bringing us to the 24th of May 2021, all I could do was sob uncontrollably. I cried for how little progress I had made in becoming who I need to be.
To look in the mirror and smile. Heck, not even smile. But to catch my reflection and feel content, or even indifferent. A feeling I'm sure many trans people can relate to.
Believe it or not, I wasn't going to open with an X-Factor sob story. I wanted this to be about positivity, but my fingers wanted to tell my story instead. To be authentic after hiding my face, and even often voice from online friends, and people I meet. It's sick that I felt relieved having to wear a mask outside this past year.
The campaign image for my fundraiser is something you can't know how much I hesitated about. It may sound shallow, but feelings of deep shame bubbled to the surface when including the photo on the left. What you see is the frontal shot taken for the consultation with Facialteam. My brows are a mess, my hair and complexion dishevelled. A low point, one that I admit I have a habit of bouncing back to.
That was the morning of my 27th birthday, one year ago. I woke up, took the required photos, and readied my consultation. I didn't send it until the day of my 28th birthday... Why? My family was struggling, and I didn't want to add any more stress. It's illogical, it was not smart of me, but I did it.
The more time passed, the more complications put me off. Covid, my grandfather's new psychosis & vascular dementia diagnosis, putting pressure on my mother. I told myself, "I have waited this long to live, I can wait for this to calm down." The milestone marked out by another year on my birthday hit me like a ton of bricks, and I just did it. Sent, finished.
Let's move forward.
The goal of this fundraiser is to raise money for my Facial Feminisation Surgery.
I have included the quote I received below for transparency.
The total comes to roughly £38,000. This is not including flights to and from Marbella, where the surgery will take place. I set the goal for the fundraiser at £40,000 as a round number. This is to account for gofundme's fees. Although it would be beyond amazing to meet the fund goal, it is neither necessary nor at all my expectation. Anything you can give will be life-changing. I should be paying as much of it as possible.
With regard to the "VIP package", this is not something I asked for, and will be asking for a cheaper alternative. It may be mandatory for safety. As it refers to transport to and from the hospital & post-operative care. I would happily recover in an alley if it meant I got to start living.
I find it hard to ask people for anything usually. I struggle to ask for help, and financial help has been a big "no-no" until now. I can't do this alone, but I must do it. I cannot wait any longer. My face informs the way I interact with the world. I have no confidence and struggle to function in my day to day life with the dysphoria attached to it.
From all my research over the years into who to approach for surgery, and how much it would cost. I was prepared to maybe come up with the expected £20,000 I had seen from other people's quotes online. Through my own money, supportive members of my family, and a loan my mother would take out for me. But the reality is it will cost almost double that. I cannot do this alone, and so I am asking for your help.
Donating won't only be changing my life, you're helping me seize a life.
If you would like to reach out to me privately, you can find me at
Email: [email redacted]
Discord: 23#1445
I deleted most social media for mental health reasons.
Organizer
Holly Farrell
Organizer
England