Violet’s FFS fund

Hi, my name is Violet- I’m a British trans woman living in the Netherlands.

I realised in my early 20s that how I had been feeling about my body and gender since the start of puberty were not typical of how men experienced it. After doing my own research I realised I was in fact transgender.

After a painful struggle accepting it and a difficult coming out to my family, I eventually went to the NHS in England for help. I was referred to a “specialist” who informed me that I wasn’t trans and in fact it was a symptom of my depression (after also establishing that being a lesbian counted against my gender identity, due to questions about my attraction towards and sexual activity with men not getting the answers he evidently wanted).

Because he was a specialist, and in my early 20s I was prone to thinking that doctors are always right, I accepted this as truth and spent the next 8 or 9 years of my life in misery trying to constantly repress those feelings and telling myself it was my depression.

Shortly before my 30th birthday I finally accepted that this wasn’t going away and wasn’t my depression - the discomfort with my body, with being seen and treated as a man, was real and that I really was trans.

Trigger warning for the following:

I have struggled through the years with self-harm, an eating disorder and substance abuse to cope with various traumas as well as the utter misery and hatred I feel when I see myself in photos or the mirror - this has improved slightly since I started taking hormones, growing up I almost always refused to be in photos.

I have managed to get a lot of help in the Netherlands, I started HRT in December 2022, but accessing facial feminisation surgery (FFS) is very difficult due to how the health insurance system works here. The insurers can refuse it if they decide that you ‘pass’ as your gender, which is obviously subjective, and they provide no information of clarity on how this is assessed and of course it’s in their financial benefit for them to think you ‘pass’.

Medical professionals view gender affirming treatments, including FFS, as life saving due to the huge improvement in quality of life , the tiny regret rate, and the huge decrease in suicide, that comes with them.

Whilst they are less common I still struggle with suicidal thoughts based around my gender - when I look in the mirror and see ‘an ugly man in drag’ - no matter what the people closest to me say it can’t change what I see, and the prospect of living the rest of my life seeing that in the mirror is so terrifying and abhorrent that I find myself wishing to die, just to escape it.

So I find myself in the uncomfortable position of asking you for help, I desperately need these surgeries, the hope that I can get them soon is the only thing keeping me going.

The amount I’m trying to raise is based on a quote from FacialTeam in Spain - whilst I would love to get the full amount, there are multiple procedures included in the quote, so to get the minimum surgeries I feel I need to keep myself going I would need at least €26,000

If you could spare even €1 that would put me closer to my goal, and if you aren’t able to do that please could you share this so that more people might see it. In either case I would be immensely grateful.