Gender Affirming Surgery Fund

Hi y’all, my name is Ser Serpas and i’m 22 now, I am an artist, writer and former organizer of Mexican-Salvadorian descent who also happens to be a trans feminine person, which means I was assigned male at birth but don't identify as a man.


I just graduated from college, and due to the station of most post grads in the United States, including my own, and the obvious failures of the healthcare system in regards to trans care, I need help raising the money to further my transition and pay for the breast augmentation procedure I desperately need.


I’ve been on hormones for almost three years now but due to my large shoulders, pectorals and head, the size of my breasts are the one thing that still identifies my body type as nonconforming, as a cause for further inspection in public spaces, not to mention the sense of dysphoria that has made my life a series of periods of isolation and depression, all the while watching my conforming peers thrive. I want to live my life to the fullest, not just online but amongst people without fear of discrimination or worse, experiences I've already gone through in the past which I will elaborate on here.


Three summers ago after my freshman year of college when, while waiting for a train at Broadway Junction in Brooklyn in a dress with visible facial hair, I made eye contact with the wrong person who proceeded to yell, “What are you looking at faggot!” at me and chase me off the platform and out of the station. I managed to flee, luckily I wasn't wearing heels, but the incident marked me for life.


By the time I started hormone replacement therapy in the fall of my sophomore year, I had learned to stop making eye contact with strangers, after a while, with anybody. People disappeared as I grew accustom to the sight of my shoes, my phone screen and the volume controls on my headphones, learning to accept that people of all backgrounds would see me walking into their subway car looking for a seat and either place a bag on those next to them and available, or yet more damaging, have their children switch seats with them to avoid being exposed to whatever I was. I remember every look of disgust, horror at my being, trepidation in even being seen near me, I was a target clearly and openly, and proximity to me carried that. Time after time I accepted dehumanization, I accepted being treated as spectacle.


These incidents resonated over time with bouncers coming in to remove me from women’s bathrooms at events, even when I was there in a hosting capacity, people calling me ‘it’ when flustered (like while going through TSA), and even being asked about my business on my very campus (one such night, when I had forgotten my student ID and was entering a dorm, I was asked by security if I was there for sex work).


These incidents ruined my college experience. I was too nervous to leave my dorm room in shared bathroom halls to even use the coed restroom and single use showers when my push up bra was in the wash or make up in bad shape out of fear of running into peers in the hallway. It reached the point at which almost developed a bladder infection.


I grew accustomed to being a hermit, showing up late to all of my classes and meetings over near panic attacks readying my body and face to be seen by non trans people who might disapprove of my being in ways all too familiar and traumatic.


This period of my life will never leave me, but things have changed over time for the better. My face has feminized, hips have filled out, hormone replacement therapy has run its three year course to bringing permanent changes to my anatomy that help me stick out less, I’ve managed to find a routine of laser hair removal and threading that works for my facial hair type, yet one element has not changed since beginning hormone replacement therapy on that October day sophomore year, my cup size.


Guidebooks for identifying trans women exist in various shapes and forms, on Reddit threads, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram pages, Facebook groups and forums far and wide. These trans hate accounts are growing in number in tandem with the visibility of the trans community in media, which grow to combat the gains in institutional and structural support for girls like me. They call for their actors to inspect feminine presenting people closely, to look at their shoe sizes (I’m an 11), their shoulder widths, arm lengths, ankle sizes, use of makeup to cover up ingrown hairs, hair growth on fingers toes and necks, neck scarring in cases of tracheal shaving, and finally cup sizes. I lie at the low end of an A without my trusty push up bra, and I did before starting hormone replacement therapy.


Things have not changed in the time I've been on hormones and I wear the same push up bra every day, it's given me a tan line and is part of me, part of my shoulders creating a full A cup. On the occasions I have not had access to this bra, the reactions to my figure have been palpable, shifting in between shock and disorder, for you see, my face has indeed feminized and I've become skilled at makeup out of necessity, yet my bare upper body to cis people is still disapprovingly and dangerously read as that of a boy.


These situations have created a barrier of potential violence that in a lot of cases have prevented me from being able take care of myself at the basest level of being able to leave the house at a moments notice for food and the like without having a panic attack over what people's reactions might be when I'm not fully prepared and passing in public.


The daily game of cat and mouse between my courage and ability to buck up and do the hour of labor it takes to leave the house without worry has run me ragged and led me to relocate to my hometown of Los Angeles for the following months to pursue the gender confirmation work while under the care of my mother.


That being said, I have found a doctor in LA, Urmen Desai, MD MPH FACS FICS, who can help me actualize. He specializes in breast augmentation for trans people with my body type. The initial consultation, pre operative examination, surgical procedures, breast implants, anesthesia, operating room, operating room staff (nurses, scrub technician, board certified anesthesiologist), surgical bra and all postoperative examinations would be covered with a 5900$ fee. I hope to raise those funds via this Gofundme, for I do not have a job currently, and my mother who is my family’s sole provider, has other loans she is paying off, essentially making both of us ineligible for a Care Credit plan which would balloon the price by another 1000$ we do not have.


I don't want pity, but I do need your help.


With the heightened hostility of the moment on behalf of the alt right and imminent fascism, I can no longer bear to be marked as nonconforming and a threat to normalcy by the very nature of my body. On a policy level I need to complete this procedure before my insurance is no longer legally bound to support it.


I’m no marauder, every day more of my trans sisters are killed and brutalized around the world and at home, including in my New York neighborhood of Bushwick where reports from the area’s trans community have indicated there is a man targeting and attacking trans women.


I worry every day that I might be next.


This procedure will give me the confidence to look people, strangers even, in the eye again and not fear discrimination, assault, or even my promised death.


I need your help and I want to compensate y'all for your generosity. For those who donate 50$ or more I will make, sign and mail you a small drawing in my style, the same goes for donations above 100$ which will receive a larger drawing, above 1000$ a painting, anything beyond that will win my heart and I will be at your absolute disposal to make you a commission.

 

If this happens, it will be a miracle and a blessing that will follow me my entire life, I thank you all in advance from the bottom of my heart, regardless, thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences.


Love and light.


Ser