I've often heard the discovery of one's transness described as "seeing her." Her: the real you.

I have been "seeing her" all my life.

As early as seven, I was dressing up in my grandmother's clothes, or my cousin's, slipping upstairs into their hampers as they prayed over turkey and stuffing from “Aldi’s” my aunt boasted was $2 a box. On rainy summer days, I stole from the city pool lost and found for a glimpse of "her," me. Returning to my boy clothes and life, I always felt defeated. Life began to only feel true during those few seconds with the mirror. But as puberty had its way with me, my reflection became increasingly incongruent with how I felt and saw myself. As the youngest in a deeply Southern Baptist home, I knew, were I to be caught, I would have faced biblical rage. My life would be spent denying myself of the truth.

In 2023, after many years of living in denial, I shared with several of my friends that I was strongly considering suicide. I wasn't so much asking for help. I just wanted them to know. I had weighed the options, and it seemed like the best thing for me to do. When I thought about killing myself, it did not make me feel sad. I felt relieved. I imagined that my mother felt the same way when she came to the same conclusion in 1997. The other option was a lot scarier than dying. I could transition. I decided I would at least try.

Two years ago, I began my medical transition, first swallowing my pills in the parking lot of a Walgreens with a sip of stale green tea. My laundry was drying on the bed in the back of my van. At the time I lived alone, isolated in a tiny cabin in Llano de San Juan, New Mexico. Isolation was the only thing that soothed my desire to not exist. On the way home, I stopped at the Rio Grande which snaked along my route home, and it started to rain. I got in the river. I remember it was directionless with the rain, pocked with goosebumps like the ones on my skin, and after my swim, I shivered in the back of my van and felt the sensation of returning to my body. The swim, I had thought, felt like a form of baptism, and every following August 17th, no matter where I have been, it has rained—hard. I don’t mention this to suggest that there is a link between my hormones and the weather. It is circumstantially beautiful, though.

Since starting HRT, I have never contemplated suicide. That’s not to say transitioning hasn’t been a crucible. I have encountered more hate and unwanted attention in the last two years than in the remainder of my life. I believe facial feminization surgery will help. Nowadays, I am seeing my true self most of the time, but it's the glimpses of my former self, or my father, that I'm trying to rid myself of. For me, facial feminization surgery is not only a way to continue my feminization, but a way to erase certain attributes passed down from my dad.

The surgery itself is mostly covered through my previous employer's insurance, and I write these words mostly in an effort to motivate you to help me with what comes next. I had to abandon my full-time professorship in order to receive this surgery and have since been doing sex work in NYC to pay my bills. Sex work is obviously not something I can do while I recover.

Ideally, I’d like to take two months off, and your contribution to this fund will go directly to helping me pay my rent, buy groceries, supplies, bone broth, etc. I call on you, my friends, for help and support during this time because you are all that I have. If anyone who sees this is in relation with anyone in my family, I'm hoping I can count on your discretion. Thank you so much for getting me this far. I could not have done it without you.

Yours,

June