To my community, both near and far, and unknown to me:

If you know me, you'll know that I have been bright, bubbly, and serving up a mean death stare basically since birth.

If you don't know me, welcome to where I'm at. You don't know where I came from, or what the back story is, so let me break if down for you real quick.

I have gone on what one could call a gender journey. Not everyone feels the need to go on this inside their lifetime, but I did. I've never felt like I fit in, but there was more home inside the queer community than I had found outside of it. So I wanted to be as supportive of that community as I possibly could.

At 21, I attended a Positive Space Training through Fleming College, where I was going for my Paralegal Diploma. Cue proper and informed allyship. Or, so I thought. The more I learned about gender and sexuality, the more I was like "oh here we go, this is why I feel like I fit here". I came out as a genderqueer pansexual.

I spent the next decade on my journey unpacking all of the things that didn't make sense about growing up. And now, at 31, I am doing my best to live comfortably as a trans man, which comes with a lot more joy and discomfort happening simultaneously, than I expected.

I'm still on the journey to figuring some things out, and while I'm doing that, I could really use some community help.

This morning (April 2, 2024), I sat in an appointment that I have been waiting for - my top surgery assessment. I was told that the wait times ranged anywhere from 6 months to 18 months.

Should this surgery be happening sooner than later, I will need some financial support to accommodate the following costs that will not be covered by OHIP:

Help me blast the cannons off my chest!

All the best,

Lea Chase