[two pictures of a short person with curly green hair posing with his comfort animal, a really soft-looking puppy]
My name is Ray. I’m an agender, intersex, multiply disabled survivor of sexual, medical, and emotional abuse. I’m trying to raise money for top surgery.
I can’t pay for surgery on my own and don’t have anyone I can borrow money from. I am still being emotionally abused by my mom, who I live with and am financially dependent on.
Also I am on the autism spectrum and have many conditions keeping me from working: Crohns disease, arthritis, major depression, ADHD, PTSD, brain trauma, an anxiety disorder, chronic daily headache (migraines multiple times a week), PCOS, and multiple pinched nerves in my arms. Basically, I’m in constant pain. I can’t walk and I can’t work and my intenstines and brain and nerves don’t work right.
Cw: breasts, surgery, fatphobia, intersexism, description of medical abuse/malpractice.
In 2012, when I was 19, I had a breast reduction surgery, hoping I could get the size of my chest down from noticeably-really-big to not-so-big. I figured B-cup was small enough that I could bind while big enough to still let me pass as my coercively assigned sex when I needed to.
While I was under, on the table, completely unable to consent, the surgeon decided rather than making me a B-cup as we had discussed, he was going to make me a DD-cup, because it would be “proportional” on my overweight body. I woke up horrified to find myself almost exactly the same size as I was before they cut me open.
After the surgery, I lost almost all feeling in my chest and it has never returned. My dysphoria got twice as bad because of this, because my chest, now numb, literally felt like it wasn’t part of my body.
Over the last 3 years my dysphoria has caused me to have frequent suicidal thoughts, which have despite all kinds of therapy and every kind of antidepressant persisted and are wearing me down.
I need top surgery urgently to get a flat chest. The procedure is called chest masculinizing surgery, although I am intersex and genderless, not masculine, not transgender, not male or “ftm”. I’ve been on testosterone for 8 months now. My voice is low and I have a beard but I am almost always gendered as a gender-non-conforming woman by strangers, which is inaccurate yet still dangerous for me.
If you donate, your money will go toward
-surgeon fee
-anesthesia fee
-the cost of traveling for a week and a halfMost of my depression is because of my chest, so I likely will become radically less depressed when my chest changes. In other words, this surgery might literally be life-saving.
I’ve made a gofundme and a new unshared bank account that I’m keeping secret from my mom, for the purpose of putting in donated money for surgery. The longer I have this account and the longer this post is circulating, the more likely she is to find out, which would be very unsafe for me. Please donate whatever you can, as soon as you can, and please share this on Tumblr if you have one (if you can queue it to be posted at night, when the most people are online, that would be best)
I understand if you cannot spare any money. Even just showing your support by spreading this around will really help.Thank you all for coming through for me.
Love,
RayP.S. I am also interested in making new friends in California and am looking to hire a caretaker, and breaking out of the abusive dynamic with my mom by expanding my support network. So, if you live on the West Coast, say hi. If you live in San Diego or LA or Santa Cruz, think about filling out the informal application for the job. I might move to LA or south of Santa Cruz soon.
hey, i’m one of the two mods right now. please excuse the long post and blatant self-promotion but i need my gofundme campaign to reach as many people as possible!
-ray