Hello and welcome to my first ever LFEBridge! Needless to say, I'm not entirely sure what to write here, so I'm going to give it my best shot! My name is Patrick - if you're here, you likely already know me, but just in case you don't: I'm a music librarian in the Northeast US, a sometimes-drag queen, and all-around nerd (ask me about disco, I dare you), and trans. It took me a really long time to come to terms with being trans, with a big defining moment being March of 2024, when I had top surgery (breast augmentation). As soon as I woke up from my top surgery, I just started crying because of how happy I was to finally feel more like myself. There hasn't been a single day I've regretted going through with that surgery since. Of course, I also promised my mother at that point that I was done with surgeries and wouldn't want to go through any more. Not only was I lying to her, but I was lying to myself as well. I've been working with a therapist on gender identity issues since 2019, and while my chest and eventual top surgery was a close focus much of that time, my relationship with my genitals was a frequent topic. In early 2024, a friend of mine underwent their bottom surgery and continued to present masculine afterward. As they worked on their recovery, I felt a supremely focused sense of envy, which I then started to unpack. This brought back many of the conversations with my therapist on my relationship to my genitals, leading me to start consultations and questions to seek my own bottom surgery (vaginoplasty). Fast forward several months now and I have many things in place for my surgery date on October 24th! I have selected a surgeon based on technique and results in Washington D.C., I've begun lining up fertility preservation, I've spoken to my work's HR about leave policies available to me, and I've spoken to close family and friends about a care plan. But there's still a matter of funding. I haven't been able to save as much for this as I would have liked and while I like to point out how my top surgery was effectively fully paid for by my insurance, that was under a different health plan and employer. My current health plan has a $2,000 deductible that I will have to meet and while it will cover things like my fertility preservation, that will instead work on a reimbursement process, meaning I need the money up front. My employer will also reimburse the last $750 of that deductible, but this will also likely be delayed repayment due to the nature of my insurance payouts. I've included an additional $1,000 in my goal as there are several medical supplies I will need to purchase once I've begun recovery. I'm hopeful this can also help me support my care team in a greater way between transportation and food costs. It has been an incredibly painful journey, coming to realize that I have been navigating the world in a way that holds me back from a full, lived experience in fear of triggering a dysphoria I didn't know I had. Having come to accept it and the remedy, I am now more excited than ever to see the end in sight, where I might feel more free to live my life without this heavy weight hanging over me. Any amount you can give will help tremendously toward helping me make this as painless a process as possible and I thank you tremendously for it! <3 If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me and I'll be happy to answer as best I'm able!
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