Written plainly and in order, with nothing exaggerated and nothing that could be used against me.
I am a transgender and intersex woman who has faced significant barriers to accessing medically necessary healthcare. That sentence sounds administrative. Lived from the inside, it has shaped almost every year of my life.
I am not writing this for sympathy. I am writing it because people are being asked to help, and they deserve to understand exactly what they are helping with.
As an intersex person, I did not have the opportunity to fully participate in decisions regarding my body and my medical care while growing up. I was expected to live according to a sex and gender role that did not reflect my identity or my personal experience.
Medical interventions and decisions made during my childhood and adolescence contributed to significant emotional distress, confusion and long-term psychological harm. Rather than reducing my difficulties, those experiences intensified my isolation and dysphoria, and left me struggling to obtain appropriate healthcare later in life.
Over several years, I followed the proper medical pathways. Psychological assessments. Specialist consultations. Multidisciplinary reviews. I attended everything that was asked of me, in the order it was asked.
My treating healthcare professionals concluded that gender-affirming surgery was medically necessary, and that it would have a significant positive impact on my wellbeing and quality of life. That conclusion was made by the people who actually examined and treated me.
Despite that conclusion, I was unable to obtain funding or access to the recommended treatment. As I grew older and tried again to access healthcare that reflected my needs as both a transgender and intersex woman, I encountered repeated barriers, refusals and unequal treatment.
The cumulative effect was that I felt unable to live openly, safely and with dignity, and unable to access the medical care and protection I required on an equal basis with others.
Throughout my life I have experienced discrimination, exclusion and unequal treatment because I am transgender and intersex. Those experiences affected my access to healthcare, employment, safety and support.
That is the honest reason this fundraiser exists. Years of unequal treatment have a financial shape, and the shape is this: obtaining the medical care I need has become impossible without assistance.
I am raising funds to help cover the costs associated with my gender-affirming surgery and the related medical expenses. This fundraiser is not about cosmetic treatment or personal preference. It is about accessing healthcare recommended by qualified medical professionals.
Every contribution, regardless of size, brings me closer to care I have spent years trying to obtain through the appropriate medical channels. Your support helps me move forward with my life and receive treatment that my healthcare providers have repeatedly recognised as medically necessary.
Gender-affirming surgery is medically necessary and would significantly improve my wellbeing and quality of life.
No funding and no access to the recommended treatment, followed by repeated barriers and refusals.
Contributions from people who read this and decide the recommendation of my doctors should count for something.
Every recognised pathway has been followed and closed. What remains is people choosing to help me reach the care that was recommended for me years ago.
Support my surgery fundMedically necessary care, refused funding.
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