Help Tabby get gender confirmation surgery

Hi, I’m Tabby, and I need your help to fund my gender confirmation surgery. Since I was 13 years old or so, I’ve known that my body has felt wrong, though it took me years to understand why and how. Even after coming out, I struggled, because unlike many trans people who know they need to replace one type of genitals with the other, what feels right to me is having both.

For a long time this obviously felt like a fantasy but the feeling and knowledge that it was right for me only grew stronger over the years. In my twenties – even before I knew I was trans – I used to spend hours searching the internet for medical papers and documents that might indicate it was possible, and for years found nothing. Then, in 2017, I found out from a friend online that a surgeon in the USA had started performing vaginoplasties without removing the penis.

This was the prompt I needed to start my medical transition. The delight I felt at finding out I could actually be who I knew I should be broke down the last of my reluctance, and I spent the next 5 years trying to access transition healthcare on the NHS. From the outset I was clear with them that this was the surgery I needed, but while they were able to help me get HRT and vocal coaching, when I was finally able to speak to one of the NHS surgeons, I was told in in no uncertain terms that they could not perform this surgery, and wouldn't be able to for at least another 4 or 5 years.

I cannot wait that long. I'm now 35 and I've been pushing for this for so many years that the steadily worsening distress I live with every day due to my body being wrong is becoming too great for me. Instead, I’ve taken the only option available to me, and looked for healthcare privately. I've been lucky enough to be able to book a surgery date with a clinic in the USA for September this year.

However, as I'm not a US citizen, I cannot get health insurance and the cost of the surgery is an eye-watering $85,000, so I am trying to raise as much of the cost as I can by crowdfunding.

To break that down, $50,000 of that is the clinic's fee for performing the surgery, and the remaining $35,000 is the hospital fee, equipment rental costs, anaesthesia, pathology, etc.

I'm not expecting to be able to raise the full amount, and I'll probably need to get a large loan to cover most of it, but if I do manage to raise the full amount, then any additional money will be used for the cost of flights to and from the USA, accommodation, food and medical supplies for my recovery afterwards (which has to be near the clinic in case something goes wrong and I need to go back to the hospital). If there's any money left after that, I will be donating it to a charity that helps other trans people to get their gender confirmation surgeries.

While I’m obviously disappointed the NHS was not able to help me, I'm very glad I attempted to access this surgery through their teams. It was important to me that I add my voice to the others calling for them to have a broader understanding of what non-binary transition can mean, particularly in regards to this form of GCS. The best part is it worked – even if not for me. I was able to break the good news to many people that the NHS are now planning on trying to provide this surgery in future!

Even with private surgery I'm still trying to use this as an opportunity to make things better for others in future as well as for myself, by encouraging my surgeon to learn and practise a slightly different approach developed at another clinic that shows promise in reducing the likelihood of some types of complications.

Please help me to achieve my dream, once thought a fantasy, so that I can finally have a body which finally feels like my own. Anything you can give would be deeply appreciated, no matter how small, and whether you can donate or not please do share this with others

Thank you <3

Tabby