Hello, friends, family and strangers! 

So this go fund me bio shouldn’t be such a big deal to write: but if I had it my way, I wouldn’t be public with something so personal and vulnerable, that shouldn’t need to involve anyone else, because this isn’t anyone else problem/responsibility.   

However, I can’t achieve this without the help of a gofund me. So I’m left with no choice but to ask for help, to make something happen that is going to change me and my life: To be so much happier, healthier, comfortable and confident, than what i have been for far too long now.

At first I thought I needed to explain here in great detail why I’m doing this, to those in my life that don’t fully understand what it means to be Trans-masculine, nonbinary, and to need Top surgery to alleviate my gender dysphoria. To help them understand why I need their support in this way. It’s very strange and uncomfortable for me to be asking others for their hard earned money (especially in times like these!!), for something that is nothing to do with anyone else and is all my decision. I’ve felt massive guilt over it and have spent so much time and energy in the past, constructing this bio. Over explaining my journey and why this surgery is necessary for me. In order to get people on my side, in efforts to be supported and not be rejected by those I love, but whom may not ‘understand’. As well as avoiding it for months to years, because of how stressful and soul draining it was trying to articulate & express myself in such a way, to try avoid being judged and instead be seen and understood. In that time, I realised I needed just that… time. To process the big feelings associated with being so vulnerable and the anxiety over what others will think and how they will treat me. I’ve been learning to accept, that being sure of something I need and being scared to do it, for a variety of reasons. Can exist together and one doesn’t invalidate the other. In some ways I still don’t feel ready to be this vulnerable yet, but I heard a quote recently that said “Being ready to do something difficult, isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision”…. So here I am making that decision in the face of my fears. 

Time and making friends with more gender diverse people has taught me: ultimately those that respect, love me and/or trust me. Will see that I know myself best and I know what I need better than anyone else.

I have to say honestly, growing up in the church made me question myself and made me believe I didn’t know what was best for me, but God and the Christian teachings (imbedded in society) did. That ideology hindered and affected me so much during that time and still even now, because along with being undiagnosed autistic until recently. I’ve struggled to listen to and understand my own feelings and experiences, because of things like alexithymia and ‘Delayed emotional processing’ which is apart of the autistic experience. So I listened to societal and religious expectations on what was best for me and the body I was born with: to feel accepted or seen as attractive. But my attempts at presenting and being seen as feminine and seen with certain female body parts/assets, to be accepted in society’s and the church’s eyes, left me feeling uncomfortable, insecure, unconfident, no sense of authentic sense of self and ultimately depressed. All the while having a false sense of security and acceptance in the idea that I was perceived better as a woman in others and societies eyes…I did have breasts after all, so surely im supposed to enjoy being feminine…and being complimented and seen as being attained for my female & feminine attributes I didn’t, I hated it and I still do. I didn’t feel like the version of myself I felt and wanted to be inside since I was a kid, I was having gender dysphoria and I didn’t realise it.

Even though I’m more masculine presenting now and the me that has always been there under the surface has come out from being suppressed. My gender dysphoria is more debilitating now in ways, because the masculine way I present that I feel good about is always overshadowed, by how low my self esteem goes when I see my chest in a (masculine) outfit I love, that I feel gender affirmed in. The gender dysphoria makes me feel so unsightly/undesirable, because I feel like a miss match of masculine and feminine in areas (like my chest or hormone induced curves) that I don’t want to be perceived with. Hiding behind the complements I got from appeasing the male gaze as a once feminine presenting person, gave me a blissful ignorance I cannot ignore. Now I have become more authentic and listened less to the ideas society put in my head about who I should be and more tomyself, the dissonance is louder now I’ve started to get closer to it. So my dysphoria is worse than ever, and I know what I want and need to do to alleviate that. It’s not mental changes, it’s physical changes, because it’s the physical parts of my body I cannot ignore how they make me feel. It’s 24/7. 

So yeah, I don’t feel affirmed in my identity as a person born to have to present with certain female body parts. I’ve tried to embrace my female attributes, but even when I was presenting feminine I wasn’t connected to my authentic sense of self, It was all for the male gaze, for society & for what God wanted of me as a female born person. So I’ve started listening to myself more and here I am. And I need support as I can’t afford to have Top surgery on my own. 

I’d also like to add that, Managing my weight to alleviate dysphoria around my feminine shape, has also been hindered by Having chronic health issues like a connective tissue disorder, M.E/cfs and PCOS. So it’s gotten to a point now where my dysphoria has disrupted my mental health, self esteem and life progress enough now. Where I couldn’t ignore or deny it any longer. 
It’s taken years of self development, healing, challenging myself, struggling, persevering, therapy of various kinds and diagnosis’s, for my physical & mental health. That have allowed me with time, to recognise/validate my feelings, to understand and trust myself and my needs more and more. I’ve learned to recognise what living In a body, that has been experiencing gender dysphoria (mostly & especially after/as puberty hit) for 34 years, has looked like and how that’s presented during my life. There’s still some things that I’m in the process of deciding, what I do and don’t need for my body in the future. But I’ve had more than enough time and experience in this body, to be sure that this particular surgery is something I need to become a happier and healthier version of myself: mentally, physically and spiritually. 

I wish I could existentially explain to those in my life, who are religious and/or who don’t understand why trans people or the need for gender affirming care exists. And that experiencing gender dysphoria, is a real inescapable thing (I’ve tried) that isn’t alleviated by therapy (this I’ve also tried) but is alleviated through changing the areas your gender dysphoria presents. But, ultimately it is an individual, autonomous experience and unless you experience it yourself, in all the ways, severity’s and areas of life it shows up in. It’s almost impossible to understand and convey in a way to make others accept and understand you…here I am though over explaining and repeating myself in attempts to. Even though I started this by saying I wasn’t going to do that! I guess being seen after years of not being being seen and misunderstood (by others as well as myself) is something that is important to my healing journey. 

With all that said, to those that love me and want to support me, but who might struggle with comprehending this, I just ask that you trust me. 

I’m so grateful to who ever wants to contribute or can contribute. Even if you want to, but financially cannot. Just Knowing I have your support and love is equally meaningful to me: To know that I will have people that will love me and stick with me through my journey, as human being trying to navigate this (silly) body and mind life gave me. So please express that even if you can’t contribute! Any amount contributed will mean the world. 

Lastly:
I made a video of a spoken word/poem, that I’d like to leave here. In hopes that it will resonate with any other people on this journey to re-discovering and recovering your authentic self. You’ve always been there, it’s just society’s construct around what sex, gender, masculinity & femininity (‘have to’ ) look like, that has made you question and therefore loose yourself ❤️ You are, we are as gender diverse people: nature at its best and most diverse beautiful self. You exist, your experience exists. 

The essence of this spoken word summarises what my gender journey has felt like, about how I feel like my younger version of myself before puberty. Was the best version of myself, the most happy, authentic version. One that knew who they were and what they wanted to be when they grew up. I started to loose vision of that as I got older. Trying to find yourself after pubity as a Trans person is such a journey, because you feel so far away and so close to your inner (younger) self, both at the same time: Because ‘you’ are there/here… but your body has become so far away from who you are within yourself, as puberty continues to develop into adulthood: This creates that gender dysphoria for me, I see it as a gender “dissonance”. So making external (surgery or hormones) and/or social adjustments (pronouns or names) to get your mind and body to be closer together and in more harmony with each other: Are some of the steps, people need to take to feel ‘one’ again within ourselves. 

I hope the metaphors in this spoken word/poem make sense to you, as much as it does for me. I leave the link and the words here: 

https://vimeo.com/977770887

“Dear little me…

Life, is going to be really, really hard…but you already know this, it’s been difficult from the start.

But amongst all the chaos, you always knew how to play: You knew how to loose and find yourself, in your imaginary space.

Pretending to be the hero and the damsel in distress; coming to save yourself from hanging off a cliff.

You were always the best version of yourself in that happy place, you could be anything and anyone. You’re childhood’s saving grace.

Like Grabbing a good stick, a towel around your waist, pretending to be someone like mowgli, Tarzan, bam bam: climbing a tree and out running the chase.

Fending for yourself out in the wild, Feeling free and invincible, that was you as child.

Then a long came these changes, a body that you’ve always known, suddenly became someone that made little you, feel alone.

That ship started to sail and There was nothing I could do, as we both grew apart: But I always felt you with me, a stowaway in my heart.

A new voyage ensued, but I felt lost from the beginning, me with out you, just wasn’t right. And so I Started swimming:  

At times I’ve felt afloat, when I swam in uncharted seas, other times I was drowning, but I could hear you calling me.

You’ve always felt like home, like something I want to come back to. Like Someone that knows me better, than I ever will do.

So please sit tight, I’m on my way back. Just keep calling my name, so I know I’m on the right track.

Some times hard to hear you, over the sirens of the sea, telling me I’m lost and who I’m meant to be.

And Although I can’t see the horizon, of where I once was from, I know you’ll be there waiting, to ask me “hey what’s wrong?”

Because all that I have come through, Is all that’s made you strong. And You wouldn’t have learned a thing, if the road was not so long.

So here’s my pledge to you, my precious little me. I promise to keep on swimming, until I find you, somewhere inside of me”