Hello! My name’s Joni and I’m fundraising to cover the costs of Vocal Feminisation Surgery!

As an escape room GM, door girl, emcee, performance poet and radio host… I use my voice a lot. And it doesn’t feel like mine.

It comes out wrong, like someone else is talking for me. I get angry at myself, I feel ashamed and so, so heavy.

It spins me into cycles of an anxiety and dysphoria. It holds back my creativity, my confidence and my capacity to be a good friend and partner.

I’m regularly misgendered, misunderstood, excluded and discriminated against on the basis of my voice.

I’ve done a course of speech pathology but it hasn't been effective - keeping my voice in the pitch and resonance that sounds like me is an enormous mental strain that I instinctively give up on after talking for a few minutes - and most of my work involves talking for hours and hours.

Getting this surgery should fix that - permanently raise the pitch of my voice by tightening my vocal cords, reversing the effects of natal puberty. This would improve my quality of life immensely. I'd feel more connected to my family, friends and community.

I'd feel free to dive into the poetry, events, radio and activist work that have been my life's passion.

The goal I’m asking for covers the surgery, flights, accommodation and recovery time.

I need to travel to Naarm for this one as no one does the surgery in the west and public options are severely limited, they’d leave me on a waiting list for many years.

If I get excess funds here the remainder will be donated to other fundraisers for gender affirmation in my community.

Your donation can make life so much more worth living.

Anything can help, even just spreading the word.

Thanks for hearing me out, asking for help like this isn't easy so I honestly appreciate you just reading this and hearing how it's important to me.

Love you lots and lots!

Joni