Jae Harlow's Fight against Dysphoria

2025 Update: WHAT A WAIT-LIST THAT WAS! It's been two long, stressful years, but we finally got there! Check out the immense difference:

The layer of safety this has afforded me is PALPABLE! People still call me out for my height and my body, but just being able to make eye contact with a stranger and have them not stare at me like I have three heads is incredible. And now that FFS is done, I can move onto the next stage!

Today (7/21/25) I drove to Charlotte, NC to have a consultation with Dr. Hope Sherie, a highly regarded surgeon who specializes in breast augmentation and body contouring. Her office was absolutely incredible, and unlike with the previous surgery, their timeline is SO much faster. Like...next month or the month after. I'll be real, I was going to try to pay for this one myself, but as it stands, I would have to make it two separate procedures with a loooong gap in between.

Just like with FFS, yes, a part of this is a cosmetic change to reduce dysphoria, but it is also a matter of safety, especially give the dark timeline we've found ourselves in.

If you're able to support, I would love to be able to get both done in one shot to make recovery, time off and cost less of an obstacle. Thank you all so much for everything you've done, both your financial and emotional support have made this seemingly impossible dream possible.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

ORIGINAL POST:

Hi! My name is Jae. I'm an artist from Virginia, and I am campaigning to raise money to pay for gender-affirming surgery.

I have been slowly losing a battle against gender dysphoria for over three decades. In 2018, I decided it was finally time to fight back. I had a body that many men would envy: strong masculine features, well-muscled from my days as an athlete. My time was spent avoiding mirrors and lying to myself while trying anything and everything to alleviate that pain with things that fell within the social norm of the time. I felt hopeless, that I could never shed that form- but I had to try. So I went to a therapist, and was approved to start hormone replacement therapy!

The next few years were a roller coaster. Because I was finally beginning to see results, I felt it was time to get a lump on my head checked out; what I thought was just a cyst. I had always been self-conscious about it, and it was just time to actually start treating myself to emotional and physical self-care. The cost was a bit high, but it was worth it. And then they called after the biopsy to tell me it was cancerous.

Long story short, any money that I had saved or obtained for gender-affirming procedures went toward the extremely costly, three-year-long process of cutting the cancer out of me and reconstructing my head afterward. But now more than ever, I feel driven to attain my true self, to value my happiness and my comfort in my own body. Being open about being transgender literally saved my life, and I will do anything I can to be the truest version of myself that I can be.

By supporting my fundraiser, you are helping me make up for some of that loss and finally achieve one of the goals that I never thought possible: FFS (facial feminization surgery.) No matter what strides I make physically, no matter how well HRT is working for some parts of my body, I will always be read as a man because of my incredibly masculine facial features: wide jaw, large chin, rectangular face shape, low brow, a nose that looks like it was smashed in with a frying pan... it's hard to understand if you don't know the feeling of gender dysphoria, but it's still hard to see myself in pictures. It's still tough to catch myself in a mirror from the wrong angle, to stream to my community from anything except one very specific angle. It still makes me lose hope. So just as I did before, I need to stop moping around and fight back.

These funds will be used expressly for this purpose, as it is the largest contributing factor toward my dysphoria. I am in the early consulting stages with the esteemed Dr. Gabriel Del Corral and am doing my utmost to make this surgery happen. Any support you can offer is incredible and means more to me than you can ever know. I've been trying to fight against this on my own for so long... but now I have people who are willing to fight with me. My family, my friends, my readers and my community members, they all give me the strength to keep fighting for these goals. And now, you can too.

Thank you so much!