Öztan's Top Surgery! Help me on my journey

[10 minutes read]

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Hi! I am a 30 year old transmasculine Irish-Turkish, London born, poet, musician and educator/facilitator. I have not been able to previously record, promote, publish or share my work online, as well as having a minimised capacity to perform due to being adversely affected by the pandemic and transitioning. To trope a trope, please help me take this additional weight off my chest, enabling me to get my confidence back so that I can better serve the communities I work with and platform the work of artists like myself.

This is an ongoing fundraiser!

As a freelancer with disabilities, while I'm trying to use my savings it would be near impossible for me to cover the full medical costs of top surgery myself. It would be a tremendous help to relieve my anxiety about finances during my recovery period (being out of pocket with essentials such as food, medicine, post-op taxis). I don't receive paid sick leave or holiday pay. While I would like to return to work as soon as possible because I love it and it gives me a strong sense of purpose, I am responsible for a vulnerable set of people who have their own complex needs. In recent times I have put together a support system including support workers and friends, self-care, therapy, ADHD coaching. The full costs of organising this operation will spread this thin - I need additional support to return in the best and safest condition.

For this reason, I am aiming to fundraise at least £1,000 in a short period of time. This fundraiser will be open while I am in recovery.

As I will be feeling emotionally vulnerable, feel free to drop a little note and do share with your own LGBTQ+ networks or send to allies individually in DMs.

NOTE OF CAUTION: Please take care when sharing on a network that might potentially include my family or Irish or Turkish communities and ask first!

Funds £€

The money will go towards these medical costs...

Cost of consultation - €50 ✅

Cost of surgery (overnight stay covered) - €3,125

Post-operative medical costs; compression binders, pain relief and other medicine if needed - €250 ✅

An additional £1,000 would be gratefully received for:

(Unpaid) sick leave

'I write, a lot' (I know) but here it is...

Last summer while in Portugal, a fellow queer friend and artist, Pleun in their understanding of my situation, suggested that I put a fundraiser together for a top surgery. Conceiving how I would get 10G together (the cost of a private 'top' surgery/mastectomy in the UK) has caused me so many ups and downs, contemplating my art and what I could have to offer in return, questioning my worthiness, even suicidality. Wishing and wishing away that summer 2023 would be the last of chest binding and crippling dysphoria while many cis peers and strangers around me seemed content in their swim wear on the beach left me aching inside. Since then, I have been under layers of baggy black sweaters, hoodies and coats in winter, not been looking down in the shower, struggled to go swimming, consistently been unable to find casual day to day outfits without difficulty, experienced back pain from not standing up straight and held increasing tension; all of this has contributed to chronic stress and ill mental health.

Binding while initially offering a glimpse of how I could be and providing euphoria, can never be a feasible long-term option due to the negative effects of rib cage deformation. Binding in fact, for me on a sensory level can often give rise to more distress as I become aware of the situation causing the dysphoria in the first place all over again through the feedback of physical pain in my back and shoulders caused by the devices I use to compress my chest into a flatter appearance.

I have been in a process of becoming sober, doing what I can to continue on with my wider mental health recovery in counselling, carrying out autoethnographic research reflecting on my lived experience as a self-identified CSA 'thrivor', a neurodiverse individual, a queer person and my cultural identities within my writing practice alongside my sessions. This is a profoundly important dimension to 'my voice' that I feel I am called to amplify. I would like one day to train to become a counsellor. I will be continuing to put my thoughts into the written form, and play within sonic and theatrical modalities following my life-affirming medical treatment.

Looking back... At how miserable I was as a 12 year old hit by a puberty that made me start producing breasts, I can say that the 'damage' I thought was 'irreversible' were these two things on my then flat chest. From the moment I found out about a surgical solution for this, a piece of the jigsaw puzzle slotted into place. I accept that I won't be able to rewind the years lost, confused, frankly depressed (but masking it). It won't be the exact way it was. I grieve. I move forward in the knowledge that I am more aware now, in my general sense of self and in my needs. I pray that it might not actually be the case that those years are lost, forever. Just as I once did not have a voice, but my silence gave birth to it, I have some faith somewhere, somehow, that my climb will lead me to a fresh view... that I am guided.

Will I be able to forge more self-dialogues from what was so grey and muddy about my past?

Will I make sense of the warped timelines of my life and patch up the gaping holes of amnesia where disfigured fragments, limbs of memory stick out?

I CAN say that now, I am able to look forward to my scars and to wear them with pride, as a marker of how far I've come, and how golden my existence is as a survivor of multiple traumas. The more I am met with doubt, even hatred or disgust by others, the more 'ammo' I feel I have for my pen and my fingertips to drive this flow,

and the more likely it is to overspill, drip the mollases of my testimony.

I hang every hard earned line up like a string of 'cevizli sucuk' sweets left to dry like washing, but for days at a time.

FINALLY because of this chance, I feel I have a future.

I have a date for a surgery (the 22nd May) that is affordable in Porto, supported by a group of friends living there who have been investing their time and energy encouraging me to step into my journey again by taking courage to step out, and share this wider. They are Ricardo, Beatriz, Da Hye and Pleun. Da Hye reminded me that this story rolls on in it's unfinished, unpackageable almost formless form. If it weren't for this group of flatmates offering themselves up for post-op after care, this procedure would also not be possible.

It would not be possible without a few friends over here in the UK, namely Calla, Geoffa, Gustavo, Patrick, Mara and without my therapist who told me that "you can't do this by yourself". I mention this because while I have felt alone walking my path at times, I have fallen back on being able to walk alongside others for a while, or make phone calls in my desperation.

To a younger me, or to a you reading this that knows you want and need this surgery yourself,

It is ok to feel hopeless or like it is not possible when trying to achieve what feels impossible or too mammoth a goal. You might be reading this as a trans, non-binary or gender nonconforming/genderfluid/queer person yourself, thinking that only certain people get to 'transition' or that you have no idea how you are going to 'come out', be accepted by someone in your life or get out of being stuck and onto the next chapters of transition or life goals. Not everyone is going to get it, and they don't have to. You may or may not find cis allies in friends, peers, colleagues, family members. It may take you years to break down the internalised stigma or understand and come to terms with micro-aggressions experienced. You may or may not find you 'fit' or 'belong' to a community of fellow trans folks. But there is a light within you that shines your goodness brightly. Your experience, your life, YOU count.

Letter to us

Dear me,

Don't be sorry you can't be cis.

We've heard that ...

trans is beautiful

trans is powerful,

trans is self-loving

... A reclaimed impossible possibility

my finger tracing the lines ...

What does this mean for me? Where is this journey taking me?

I have a way to go to get where I want to be. This is only the start.

I am trying to live my life against the odds of societal and familial pressures and prejudice. I want to be able to inhabit my body more fully.

I realise that it will be hard for many people to 'understand' and even accept that I DO accept who I am, and am coming to love who I am, including my body. I was not born in the wrong body or feel like I may become a man as I start to appear more like a man. This is my body, all the while I might dissociate from it and feel like it works against me at times. In the face of a crisis in trans healthcare, this is about autonomy and survival which becomes my own personal activism. No more 'proving' or convincing medically gatekeeping professionals for access. No more abusive waiting lists for a necessary surgery that can relieve my suffering. Some may ask: "why do you need to change yourself if you are already who you are as you are?". This is a very philosophical and political question and one that is personal and not so simple to answer. I would like to emphasise that this treatment is not to assimilate and 'pass' as a man. More than anything, a dream from the child within is to press my flat chest into the sand at the nearest opportunity. I want to remember what that feels like.

The incongruence that occurs is not only on a visual or 'aesthetic' level but proprioceptively, within a sense of who I am in my body - an integral part of my identity. Currently, I feel the breasts on my chest should not be there and that they are in the way, both physically and figuratively. This causes me deep distress and I am finding it hard being out in public. This surgery has notably good outcomes for the wellbeing of transmasculine and non-binary people.

I consider my transitioning as a universal quest to be my self fully, as much as is possible, as I dare to dream or strive for, to no longer falter, hide or cower. I am a sunflower turning my head towards the sun, growing taller as my stalk gets thicker.

While I am reaching out mostly to those who are familiar with top surgery in the trans and wider LGBTQ+ community and allies for a helping hand, I believe in my heart that I can keep the door open to my close family members and family network... The door is for those who can allow the spirit of 'change' to enter their being, can allow themselves to come with me on this journey (maybe) later, a journey of discovery about who they are also, essentially who we are together when we can be brave, bold and vulnerable, when we can witness trans joy and feel a calling to be in support of, not fear of it.

I have not been in anyway 'online' for about 4 years, having been inactive pre-pandemic and going completely 'off-radar' following a period of questioning and coming out. While I am known as Öztan (he/him), living my life out as a pre-testosterone trans guy socially and professionally, it has been detrimental to be stunted by not being able to access care and legal recognition due to lack of resources and support. Many schools are becoming hostile places for trans, non-binary and gender diverse people, making my work as an educator compromised. I really want to become more self-sufficient and get myself in a healthier place where I can apply for funding for my own participatory music-making projects, which is a good part of what I undertook my post-graduate training in, as well as releasing my own music, publishing my poetry, and devising solo multi-modal theatre work around being a London born 2nd generation immigrant and queer... Please appreciate that providing my story and exposure to social media must be slow currently. Disclosures must not be taken lightly as it is a risk to my mental health. YOUR SUPPORT doesn't just aid me financially but uplifts me and helps me access my wider goals and my dreams as I become less isolated in my process.

This is a slice of my reality, my truth.

I endeavour to use my lived experience and my voice(s), written, spoken, sung to elevate raw unfiltered messages of creative expression, hope, resiliency and faith in the dark eve of adversity. My name means self/essence dawning. I may not be satisfied, but I do not want to live in regret or with bitterness. In the words of Paul Dano's character, Dwayne, who is silent for most of the movie in one of my favourite drama's, Little Miss Sunshine; "do what you love, and f*** the rest"!

I know who I am... but I am still changing, adjusting, adapting, developing, always searching, willing to question and engage. I choose to be honest with my self and and try in earnest to find what can make me the most at peace and genuinely happy and stick by it.

& More

Please check this page for updates as I will be selling a new self-published work entitled 'Some Parts Don't Have Names'. I will offer a percentage off for those who have donated here on this page. Alternatively, you may wish to place an order in advance.

Gratitude of financial offers received so far

The cost of flights has been kindly covered by Calla, AKA mistakeless.

Thank you to two of my clients, Şehriban and Stacey whose children I teach piano to, for seeing me on my trip with your donations. I will use this to cover the post-surgery costs.