Help Isa Get Top Surgery

Hello, my name is Isa and I am a 23-year-old trans Latinx immigrant currently living in New York City and studying to be an LGBTQ+ focused therapist. In the midst of my graduate work, which has focused on developing skills to help trans clients navigate the scary, cost-prohibitive, and frustrating process of obtaining lifesaving gender-affirming surgery, I created this fundraiser to ask loved ones, new friends, and compassionate strangers for help to finally get my own top surgery in the summer of 2022. For folx who don’t know what top surgery is, it’s a gender-affirming reconstructive surgery performed on the chest. For transmasculine individuals, top surgery is used to remove breast tissue and create a masculine appearance to the chest. Many people know the feeling of being trapped by physical limitations or being judged and misrepresented because of how their gender is perceived by others. Gender dysphoria is the experience of social and/or physical conflict between one’s assigned gender at birth and personal experience of gender. Every trans person experiences dysphoria differently and it’s a difficult experience to describe. To me, it’s the feeling of living in a body that constantly invalidates who I am, the physical and emotional pain of feeling suffocated by something tethered to me at all times.

To me, top surgery is liberation. It’s a chance to know what it is like to take a step in this world as my authentic self, fully integrated and present in my body. With this fundraiser, I’m asking for help to be able to make this a reality. Top surgery is incredibly expensive and health insurance companies have policy after policy limiting coverage for transgender care. Because of this, I will be paying for a large portion of my surgery out-of-pocket. I have been saving as much money as I possibly can in the past years but am still a ways away from reaching the unbelievable price this country’s health care system has placed on gender-affirming surgeries - procedures that help people transition to their self-identified gender. Gender-affirming surgeries are the only clinically supported treatment for gender dysphoria, they are lifesaving procedures. I know that many of us are financially pressed at this time - every donation, no matter how small, is incredibly meaningful to me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my words. If you have any questions you would like to ask me, feel free to reach out by clicking the "contact" button below. I’m an open book and would love the chance to thank anyone who took the time to consider helping me.

For more information on top surgery and other gender-affirming surgeries please visit: ​​https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21526-gender-affirmation-confirmation-or-sex-reassignment-surgery