Help Mila Cover Remaining Transition Costs

Updated: 9-25-2022

I rather hate starting anything I write with “hello,” but no matter how I turn it over, I can’t think of a better way. And so…

Hello :)

My name is Mila (she/her), and I am a 32-year-old trans woman working toward her fifth year of transition. If you are reading this, it is because I have finally swallowed my pride and decided to ask for help in covering the remaining costs for bottom surgery (scheduled for March 28th, 2023). Since I first started coming out in May of 2018, I have gone the majority of this process alone (including the cost of therapy, hormones, voice training, and facial hair removal, not to mention things like clothes which had to be totally replaced). As a teacher, this was…a strain. Prior to transition, I was already barely able to cover my monthly expenses. Since transition, I have seen any hope of savings give way to a steadily-mounting debt.

Unfortunately, most transition-related costs are not covered by insurance. Because of this, I made the decision in May 2021 to quit teaching and become a barista at Starbucks. Depressingly, the pay at Starbucks is even more abysmal than what I was making teaching. However, what Starbucks does offer is the most accessible transgender health insurance available to working class people like me.

Initially, I had planned to teach full-time and barista part-time; however, a few months into my new coffee shop gig, I realized that I simply did not have the time, energy, or emotional reserves to do this. In leaving my career as a teacher to become a barista, I made the conscious decision to make the rest of my medical transition my full-time job. It’s not been easy: not only is Starbucks an extremely physically-and-emotionally-demanding job under normal circumstances, the reality of working there since COVID is that we are also perpetually short-staffed. Furthermore, while I am grateful to have the opportunity to focus on my transition, putting every other part of my life on hold is not an especially fun way to have to do it. Doing this has been a major strain on my mental health over the last year and a half.

In fact, the horrible wages and conditions are what led me to contact Starbucks Workers United shortly after the first store in Buffalo voted to unionize and spearhead the union movement in my own store in Clarksville, IN. I was very nervous to do this, as I knew that if management caught wind of this before we had enough union cards signed to file, I would be immediately fired and lose all access to the benefits I'd already sacrificed so much for. I am extremely proud to say, however, that my coworkers and I were successful in this effort, and on July 29, 2022 we voted 14-1 in favor of unionization--making us the very first in Indiana to do so! Hopefully, this will mean that future trans baristas will have access to higher pay and even better benefits than I have had to make do with.

While this is exciting and something I am very proud of, until a union contract is negotiated, my own situation remains little changed. In fact, it is actually worse now than it was before. I have been highly targeted and heavily retaliated against as a union organizer and the public face of the organizing at our store. For example, I have had a promotion to a higher-paid position as a shift supervisor, originally promised to me in February, withheld from me since April. For several months after we publicly filed our intent to unionize, I had my hours cut nearly in half, to the point that I am barely able to make rent (let alone other necessary costs like food, which now mostly only consists of the single free food item I get each day from Starbucks). While we have filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB for the way I and others have been treated (https://www.nlrb.gov/case/09-CA-297765), these are still ongoing and unresolved. Further, the organizing I do (while, again, something I am very proud of, would not change, and fully intend to continue putting all of myself into) represents many hours of additional work for which I am not paid, making time management relative to income a constant struggle of mine.

Starbucks touts its transgender health insurance benefits as proof of how progressive and pro-worker it is; the reality, however, is that I am barely able to pay for my basest living expenses. The thousands in remaining costs I will have to pay for bottom surgery (something I have wanted since I first learned of it as a teenager), therefore, seem completely unmoored from reality.

To this end, I am hoping to raise a total of $15k to cover my remaining expenses (which have unfortunately gone up since I first created this campaign). Fortunately, I have already been successful in the first goal of this campaign, which was to cover the necessary travel costs for the Facial Feminization Surgery I had done in March 2022 (and thank you SO MUCH to everyone who contributed to that--I do not know how I would've been able to afford the ~$2400 I ended up having to pay for that, and my dysphoria has been significantly improved because of it). However, I still need thousands more in order to pay for bottom surgery, which includes the necessary pre-operative hair removal (which, due to changes in insurance benefits, will no longer be covered by Starbucks), my out-of-pocket max for insurance, travel to and from NYC (where the surgery will be performed), and the cost of lodging there for a month while I recover to a point that I can return home. I realize that this is a significant ask, especially with as difficult a time as this is for everyone due to skyrocketing inflation and stagnant wages. If, however, I can even raise some percent of that sum, it will go a very long way in providing me some financial relief, and thus also mental and emotional peace of mind. And if by some chance I happen to raise more, you can be assured that it will still be used for the same purpose.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Even if you cannot afford to contribute monetarily (which, obviously, I absolutely understand), please consider sharing this campaign with others. Every little bit helps!