Phoenyx's Transition Goals

Hi, my name is Phoenyx,(Nyx for short), I was born Shannon. I am a 29 year old Trans nonbinary person. I have CP (Cerebral Palsy Spastic Quadriplegia) which means it affects all four limbs, this also means I am wheelchair bound. For the past two years, I have been looking to medically transition. Growing up I always felt that something about me wasn’t right but put it down to having CP and my body not working like I wanted. All throughout secondary school and college, I tried different things to make me feel better because things had gotten so bad that looking at myself in the mirror was impossible and acknowledging certain parts of my body made me feel physically sick. I went through stages of making an effort to be ultra-feminine e.g., hair, makeup, clothes and even push up bras which were extremely uncomfortable to wear but I believed that if I made my outward appearance as feminine as possible, then maybe, just maybe I would start feeling that way on the inside. I realise now that that was a bit like trying to fit a square block in a round hole because after all my efforts all I was left with was severe depression and anxiety. Not knowing anything about the Trans community or there was such a thing as nonbinary at the time I didn’t tell anyone about my feelings because I thought I was just experiencing things normal teenagers do either that or I was possibly just crazy and broken. My friend and I used to joke about what I would be like if I was a male all the time, I found it was the only way to alleviate the pressure. Due to other medical conditions, I couldn’t eat a lot so I lost a lot of weight but I still felt fat and disgusting so I tried to diet my way to happiness. In the end though, food lost all taste and I only ate to keep up appearances.

By the time I left college I hated absolutely, hated myself. I started having horrific dreams that oddly thanks to my disability I couldn’t enact so I learned to suppress my harmful thoughts but that led to me picking my skin scratching uncontrollably till I left scars, any little bit of relief to make this feeling go away but I wouldn’t show or tell anyone close to me because I didn’t want to let my loved ones down or have them hate me. Family is everything to me both blood and chosen. Although no one has told me this I have always felt a failure for being born the way I am and I felt if they found out this would only add to that, I couldn’t do that to them, so I just shut off. I don’t really remember the years after that. When things finally started to get better Lockdown hit…. Every single feeling, I had kept a bay began to grow crushing me I didn’t care about anything anymore. Some days I’d wake and not remember my name, even when I did finally remember it didn’t feel right like Shannon was someone else. I spent hours aimlessly watching Youtube videos till I found Jammidodger and never looked back. The more videos I watched the more I learned about what it felt like to be trans. It felt like a lightbulb flickered on in my brain. I wasn’t crazy! I wasn’t alone! My thoughts and feeling were valid! From then I delved into research to find out what I needed to do to finally be comfortable in my own skin. I did everything I could do on my own like finding my name, changing the way I dressed and coming out to my family. I did ask my doctor to refer me to a gender identity clinic so I’m now on a waiting list for Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust to get an appointment which I found out could take up to 5 years.

I am really struggling my mental health is declining rapidly watching other people's transition stories gives me hope but when looking for stories of trans people that are in the same situation as me (Wheelchair bound) I can’t seem to find anything. I know I can’t be the only fully wheelchair bound person to feel this way? For me it’s like a weird sense of torture not only being in a body that doesn’t feel like yours that works differently from one day to the next, while being stuck in a chair most of the day leaving you time to sit and stew over every single flaw over and over but also being trapped in a body that feels like it doesn’t belong to you. I’ve been on The NHS list for over a year now and during that year the dreams have come back and my dysphoria,( although I haven’t been officially diagnosed I know what it is.) has increased to the point where I spend entire days fighting back tears and running on autopilot just to make it through the day so my only options will be to go private. I’m tried several different ways of raising the money that I need but to no avail.

That’s why I’m on here asking for help. To complete my transition journey will be a costly and lengthy process. All in all, I have worked out that to complete the top half of my transition I will need approx £8,650. Any help will be deeply appreciated even if you just buy from my Etsy Shop NyxNet Creations all profits from sales will be going towards this anyway. I’m also planning to document every step possible of my experience possibly on TikTok, Facebook and Youtube in the hopes of providing other wheelchair bound trans people a more visible platform and to be an example for them. To show them just because we’re in wheelchairs and have difficulties doesn’t mean we can’t have the bodies we deserve.

My only problem is I am not very tech-savvy when it comes to Youtube and things like that, so if I could be a little cheeky… anybody who willing to help me with this goal or if you just want to help me make disabled Trans people more visible please contact me through the GoFundMe website. I don’t know everything I don’t even know how to start, I just want to help so people have somewhere to turn to and don’t have to suffer like I am.

Thank You,

Phoenyx