Hi folks, my name is Raine and I'm a Latinx trans woman living in Chicago. Originally from the West Coast, I moved to the Midwest with my former partner in November of 2025, where I am essentially starting my life over. Prior to leaving my home in Seattle, I was scheduled for what would have been the last gender-affirming surgeries that I've been working towards for the last eight years. Everything was moving along just fine until December when my life got flipped around.

I was notified by UW Medicine that they were no longer providing surgery to non-residents, and that my scheduled procedures were canceled. To add difficulty, I had to quickly change jobs as the employer that enabled my transfer to Chicago chopped my pay and hours to just 60% of what I was making in the same position in Seattle. Fast forward another month, and now my partner and I have broken up after almost two years, forcing me to leverage all of my finances towards maintaining stable housing on my own. Additionally, my music career has ground to a halt, eliminating a consistent source of income that would allow me to cover my medical expenses.

Here we are in March on the week of my 40th birthday, and I'm staring down the difficult gauntlet that life has laid out in front of me. I need several surgeries, not only the remaining gender-affirming surgeries for my transition, but also oral surgery to remove four wisdom teeth and jaw surgery to alleviate the sleep apnea that I've experienced since my 20's. I need help building a fund to support paying my insurance deductible and max-out-of-pocket costs, as well as covering my expenses for recovery and the substantial amount of work I'll miss while recovering.

If I'm lucky, I've lived about half my life to this point, and I want nothing more than to just be healthy for the life I still have to live. Help me get to the finish line with my transition and nagging health issues. Anything contributed will be used for copays and saved away for the procedures I have scheduled later in the year. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out!