Hello, my name is Jay Ware and I want to share a little of my unique story with you today and ask for your help.

Being a transman can be a difficult thing to navigate, and a difficult journey to share. I was born a female named Jen and raised in the Bay Area of California. When I was younger, there was not the LGBTQ+ community you see today. When I was a teen, I knew that I didn’t feel like a girl, but I did not have the words to describe the disconnection I felt between my physical body and my mental image of myself. Being a teenager is hard enough… right? However, when you add the layers of confusion and complexity of what I was experiencing, it began to take a serious toll on my mental health. In 1990, at the age of 17, I attempted suicide, feeling that there was something wrong with me that couldn’t be fixed. I was swept under the current of shame, denial, and fear coming to terms with my gender identity.
God must have been watching over me during this time, because when I woke up from the suicide attempt, I began working with a doctor who had a name for what I was experiencing. I was Transgender. I still had no clue what that really meant, to be a transgendered person, but I felt a bit of hope to think that I might be able to find a way to connect the dots and understand who I truly was inside. This began my journey of finding my identity, accepting who I was, and claiming my gender. I started my transition, and was proud of the body I was creating. I embraced my masculinity and became the man I had envisioned myself to be.

For over 30 years I’ve lived a successful, fully integrated life. In 2015 tumors had grown in my ovaries which led to a decision to undergo a hysterectomy to rid my body of illness. A year later, after feeling internally male, now rid of female organs inside of me, I was curious and ready to celebrate my own body. I did tons of research on different, simple procedures. I decided to make a bold choice, and have a metoidioplasty surgery to enhance what many years of testosterone had already, perfectly created, unlike most others not on testosterone for as many years. I began to work with a surgical team to create a plan to do some simple reconstruction procedures to take the last step in my gender reassignment process. However, the surgeon who performed the procedure made critical errors due to the lack of experience he had working on trans bodies. At the time I was told what was done was irreversible, and I was devastated. I was told it could not be repaired. I had spent my whole life living in a body that I had come to love, and it was now permanently changed. After the first surgery, I was instructed to undergo several major transformative surgeries in order to reverse the damage, which included a phalloplasty & skin grafts. I became critically ill after the surgery which due to surgical error left me with an and I was in critical condition, and it almost killed me. Imagine how hard it was to overcome numerous surgeries, an infection so severe I was monitored by the infectious disease team, the loss of skin from the outside of my left arm, leg skin grafts, nerve damage, constant medications from cluster headaches, ongoing health complications and the devastating loss of most of my sexual function, and still have a body so badly constructed (my surgeon actually passed out when he saw my body after it had “healed”) that I lost my entire sense of self. This left me feeling hopeless, depressed, suicidal, and overcome with my PTSD symptoms. Not only did my health deteriorate, but my beautiful new relationship was being severely affected.

For the last 4 years I have been sent to numerous doctors who do not have the skills to do the revisions I need, and even the surgeon’s office that made these egregious errors outright denied me care and said it was a conflict of interest.  I surrendered to the fact I would have a body I couldn’t stand, but still maintained hope. I thought there was no one out there that could fix the damage that was done until I looked outside of California and found Dr. Toby R. Meltzer out of Scottsdale, AZ and went to see him. Dr. Meltzer has done hundreds of transgender surgeries, including these specific unique repairs and revisions I require over his many years in practice. After a consultation we have identified the two surgeries that are needed to repair/revise what has been done. I felt elated that we could finish what was started and I could get my life back! I was in the process of setting a surgery date (which at the time I was able to pay out of pocket for these expensive but life changing procedures) but then Covid hit. My businesses were impacted immensely, and I lost almost everything. Now I am no longer able to afford the procedures, and it is a struggle to stay in the fight for my life.

I’ve given 4 years of my life trying to find a solution so I can feel “fixed”, and have come to the realization that this can only happen if I swallow my pride and ask for help. I’ve decided to become open and vulnerable about my journey so I can begin to get the help and hope I need. I have a long journey ahead, and every donation you make takes me one step closer to finding the closure I need, and to regain my health back. Even a dollar will help, because every penny makes a difference. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.  If you cannot donate, please share, sharing is caring and it takes a village!

Be the village that helps this Transman regain his health and get his life back,

- Jay Ware