Help Mason (Non-Binary Latinx) Obtain Top Surgery

Hello, I’d like to introduce myself as Mason. I’m a 21-year-old non-binary person from the PNW, and I am currently working in a spa and trying my best to sell my artwork and commissioned art as well.

MY STORY

I knew from a very very young age that my identity was not aligned with what I’d been assigned at birth. I so badly wanted to be given the freedom from being perceived as a normal little girl, to play basketball with the guys, building legos, even the act of not bathing felt gender-affirming, even if I didn’t realize what that meant at the time (I also realized not long afterwards that bathing is something I should be doing!).

Once that all-too-awkward stage of puberty hit where my body began to mature, I felt like I was in a crisis. I didn’t want this, I didn’t ask for this, my body began to turn into something that I didn’t recognize as me. I constantly felt anxious, stressed, and my depression became this unruly monster in my mind every time I looked in the mirror.

Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was this feeling of gender dysphoria that made me shun my own image and reflection for far too long.

I began my research into the 2SLGBTQIA+ community when I was around ten years old, trying to find out why I felt this way, and if it was normal. It wasn’t until I was twelve years old, two years later, that I came out for the first time in my life as transgender, and changed my pronouns to he/him. I didn’t want to be perceived as a girl in any capacity, I only ever wanted to be seen as the young man I felt I am.

I began to bind my chest, and have been doing so since then. My arms would ache, my shoulders would be in so much pain I’d wake up and cry in the middle of the night because of it. But even to this day, I’d rather endure the pain to feel content when I saw myself in the mirror than not bind and feel dysphoric the whole day.

Then when I was fifteen, nearly sixteen, I came out a second time as non-binary because I realized something important; suppressing any femininity I had inside me just wasn’t the way, and I wasn’t fully satisfied with my identity because of that suppression. I plagued myself with these unrealistic standards of who I should be as a transgender man, and realized that it’s completely okay and valid to not identify as a man or a woman.

So here we are, five and a half years later, and I still identify as non-binary, I still bind my chest, and I have never lost or wavered from the masculinity I feel so strongly inside my being.

My desire for top surgery has remained since I was eleven years old, before I even came out. To be so close to obtaining something I’ve longed to have for nearly half my life, younger me would be so beyond happy and excited that this surgery is finally starting to become reality after years of binding. This desire has stayed with me for a whole decade, and now I feel the time is right to finally pursue what I’ve always wanted; to feel completely comfortable in my own body.

Everyone deserves to have that.

To everyone who is reading, thank you. Thank you for your support, for reading my story, for your time, all you’ve given to me, truly.

Despite me working as much as possible at my current job while trying to sell my artwork on the side, it is enough to maintain my day-to-day life, but I need the extra help in order to obtain the amount necessary for top surgery expenses.

EXPENSES

These expenses include: the surgery itself, aftercare, and life expenses for the 6 weeks I’ll need to be out of work to heal, like bills and rent and groceries.

Anything that can be donated is deeply appreciated, beyond what words can express.

Thank you.

— Mason Garcia