Lifechanging surgery fund

This fundraiser is being run by a friend to protect the anonymity of the person who will be receiving the funds for their surgery. Below is a message from them explaining their situation.

 

Hi there!

 

I’m X, a non binary transmasc person living in London, in the UK. I'm raising funds to have top surgery in October this year.

 

Just a TLDR for those who don’t have time to read the full thing;

 

1. The freelance client I was expecting to pay for this surgery flaked on me, causing me a loss of an expected £10,800 from Jan-Dec 2022 income. I’ve tried (and am trying) to replace that loss, but it’s looking near impossible.

2. I am a (deep breath) trans nonbinary, disabled, fat person of colour who is a carer.

3. I have had a very painful recurring condition on my breasts for the last 2 years that minor surgery hasn’t fixed.

4. I love and appreciate you for clicking this link.

 

The full story

 

Off the bat, I appreciate that anonymously raising money looks suspicious – but I’m not able to have my real name on here for safety reasons, not just for me but also my family, as I’m a carer. However, if you’d like to speak to non-anon people who can vouch for me, I’ll link some Twitter handles below!

 

If I were outed, I would likely be cut off from my family and wider community, and my faith and heritage are incredibly important to me and something I don’t want to risk. More than that, though, my biggest fear is for my disabled family members who are dependent on me – if they found out I’m queer, they might be cut off from both me and their community, which is vital to them being able to survive and live happily and comfortably.

 

You might be thinking, “Well, X, how are you going to get away with going from a J to a AA cup without them noticing, then?” The answer is that for the last three years, I’ve had recurring sebaceous cysts on my breasts, which are incredibly painful, and for which I’ve had unsuccessful minor surgery to try to remove. The logical next step is for me to have a breast reduction, I’ve explained this to my family as the reason behind wanting surgery, and they’re thankfully very supportive of this decision. However, I wouldn’t be able to have full top surgery on the NHS, and anyway the NHS waiting list for any kind of breast reduction to deal with the cysts would be several years long. So I thought, I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

 

These cysts have made me indescribably miserable and caused me to lose countless hours of sleep, not to mention hours of freelance work that I couldn’t do because I couldn’t move without severe pain.

 

And honestly, it sounds ridiculous, but I lowkey feel like these cysts are a gift from a divine guardian angel - I get to have the surgery, and keep my family too.

 

I’m raising money to cover the cost of consultation, surgery, and recovery for top surgery via a private healthcare provider. I’d love to be able to do this via the NHS, but waiting lists nationally are around five years or more just to have an initial appointment with a Gender Identity Clinic, and then it’s another few years before you’re able to access surgery – and I can’t keep waiting. Additionally, trans healthcare services in the UK are not only incredibly underfunded, but they rely on an outdated medicalised, binary model of transness. When applying for top surgery on the NHS, you usually have to be taking testosterone for at least 6 months before you can be referred for surgery – as a nonbinary person, I’m not sure if I want to take testosterone, but I definitely want (and need) top surgery.

 

I’ve known I was queer since I was ten years old, and I’ve been binding for well over decade. I have permanent injuries from binding, including scars and breathing problems (love to live through a respiratory pandemic). As well as this, medical fatphobia is incredibly real , and means that the vast majority of surgeons who can perform this operation on thin people, can’t do it on me. Surgeons, and other medical professionals, are only trained on thin, white bodies, and most of them lack the understanding or skills to correctly treat and provide care for people of colour & fat people. This is another reason I’d hesitate to go the NHS route, if it were possible to wait – because I’d be likely to end up with complications, visible scarring, and a higher likelihood of needing a corrective surgery if I weren’t able to choose my surgeon.

 

I've been intending to get top surgery for years now, and had reconciled myself to the fact that it would need to be done privately. I've been saving and taking on extra work for several years now, but life under the Tories is expensive and it's really difficult to save tens of thousands of pounds and also be able to handle other expenses and emergencies. Towards the end of last year, I lined up a freelance client who was going to pay me a total of £10,800 over the course of 2022, which would have been perfect - but they unexpectedly ditched me in January and I've not been able to find anyone else to cover the loss yet.

 

Gender dysphoria, internalised fatphobia, and internalised racism & colourism are really not a fun combo to battle every single day, and I know that top surgery would take me so far towards feeling better in my body – my chest means I’m constantly misgendered, especially because I’m fat, but a flat chest would immediately change how I’m perceived and would mean I can start getting comfortable with the rest of me.

 

So, after a decade and a half, I’ve finally made the leap and got the ball rolling. I have already had a private consultation with a psychiatrist, who’s referred me for surgery with the surgeon I’ve chosen on the recommendations of other Black & brown fat transmascs. The psychiatry appointment cost £300, and the initial consultation with the surgeon is £165. The inclusive care package for pre-assessment, surgery, and aftercare is £8300, interest-free for up to ten months. I’m hoping to be able to pay within 10 months and not have to start accruing interest, but that’s an option too, depending on when the surgery happens and when I manage to raise the money.

 

Other costs

 

The surgeon works in Hull, which it turns out isn’t very accessible from East London – so my partner and I will need to pay for travel to Hull and accommodation there for the surgery itself (2-3 nights of accommodation) and follow-ups after the surgery.

 

My girlfriend and I are planning to move in together in the next few months (but like, platonically, if anyone I know IRL asks [eyes emoji]). We’re doing everything we can to save as much as possible between us, but I have financial dependents and my girlfriend is disabled and on a low income. I’ll also likely lose at least two weeks’ worth of freelance work during the recovery period, and my girlfriend’s disabilities mean that once I’ve had the surgery and am recovering, it’ll be really difficult for her to take care of me on her own. So we’re hoping to raise money to cover stuff like grocery deliveries and medical supplies – and maybe even hiring a part-time carer to come and help her, as a last resort – as well as the actual cost of the surgery itself.

 

Total cost: £10,265

 

Psychiatrist appointment – £300

Surgeon consultation – £165

Surgery package – £8,300

Transport & accommodation – £500

Recovery costs – £1000

 

I’ve set the target at £10,000 in the hope that we can raise enough to cover the consultations, surgery, transport, and recovery, as well as other associated costs that might pop up. Like I said, my girlfriend and I are saving like mad and I’m hoping to not need half of what we raise, but I also want to be realistic and transparent about the costs of something like this, especially for people who haven’t got experience with this kind of healthcare and don’t know how much it costs.

 

Any leftover money after my costs are covered will be redistributed to other surgery funds, especially those posted by other fat POC.

 

References

If you want to make sure I'm a real person and verify the info above, please reach out to any of these people on Twitter who can vouch for me: