Hello community! My name is Inez and I'm writing this on behalf of my family, most importantly my son Lucas.

As many of you are well aware, we're currently facing targeted attacks on rights for trans folks all over the country, especially our kids. This is my family's story of being impacted by those attacks:

On Wednesday July 23rd, Lucas had an appointment with a surgeon at Kaiser for gender affirming top surgery he's been waiting FOUR YEARS for. It was an exciting day, everything seemed to go well and we were looking forward to being able to schedule his procedure before the end of 2025. However, things were derailed when the following morning, Thursday July 24th, Kaiser announced its decision to pause all gender affirming surgeries for people under 19 years old. It's difficult to describe all of the feelings that this stirred up. As a parent, I felt heartbroken and full of rage, but I also knew that I needed to explore our options outside of Kaiser's system because I wasn't going to let this mess prevent my child from getting the care that he needs. In their statement about the decision they claimed that, although their surgeons would not be performing surgeries they would provide referrals and support to patients seeking these services. It's been a month since the announcement and we have not received a single referral or clear answers about what "support" is going to look like moving forward.

Thankfully, we've found a local surgeon who Lucas feels comfortable with and it's looking like top surgery in 2025 is still a possibility. The challenge is that we're now left to pay out of pocket for this procedure and so we've decided to turn to our community to ask for help. We've got a follow-up consultation to attend, but the loose estimate we've received is 17-20K. Benji and I will be using our honeymoon fund to offset some of the cost but we've still got a long way to go. We know there's A LOT going on in the world right now, and many places where your energy might be directed, so thank you if you've made it this far. We deeply appreciate any amount you can contribute, or if you're unable to donate, please share with your networks. Also, if you know anyone dealing with a similar challenge, please feel free to send them my way so I can offer any resources or info that might be useful.

In solidarity, con mucho amor,

Inez