Gender Affirmation with FFS (Facial Feminization Surgery)

Hi everyone & thank you for supporting me in covering the costs of my FFS!

This surgery will allow me to look in the mirror and finally see myself the way I would have developed if I would have had a female puberty. Additionally, it is also a matter of safety as (coming closer to) passing as a woman in the eye of the public is unfortunately still life-saving.

I want to start this fundraiser text with the acknowledgment that I am white, German, able-bodied, neurotypical and norm-thin to name some of the major sources of privilege. These factors have opened so many doors in my life without me ever lifting a single finger for them. Additionally, given the state of the world and all the life-saving fundraisers that are being organized, if you do not wish to contribute to this one, that is a more than fair and understandable choice. So no hard feelings!

Yet I am finding myself in this situation where I am being confronted with this exorbitant sum of money that I need to pay to receive this gender affirming health care and I cannot do it on my own.

I wish we would live in a world where health insurances would cover these costs and we would not need to be in the position as trans people to ask our communities and allies for financial support. But here we are and I am asking you for support to pay the costs of my Facial Feminization Surgery which is scheduled for March 3rd 2025. In my case this includes a Forehead Feminization Procedure . The decision of doing this surgery has been a long time in the making and I went through many backs and forths along the way. Ultimately though, when I took it, I felt a huge rush of relief which was the best reaction imaginable.

If you wish to learn some more about my journey, my thoughts and why I have come to this point here you go:

From very early on in my life, I knew, and it’s pretty obvious when you look at pictures from that time, that I am female. Boy things didn’t make sense to me and I always naturally surrounded myself only with girls. I don’t necessarily love narratives like “a woman born in a man’s body” because they reinforce the gender binary structures which in my eyes is the one and only root problem. I ask myself frequently:

What if all people were just born trans?

What if no one was assigned a gender at birth?

What if we would simply view and treat differences in genders just like differences in facial features?

In this ideal utopic world, I ask myself would anyone need to transition? Would I have chosen this road if no one would have made my appearance and way of being an issue?

But they did and I, just like all trans people, live with that reality of always being perceived as “other”, “unnatural” and “freaks”. Towards the end of primary school, I felt the forces of compulsory cis-heterosexuality tightening its grip around the youthful innocence that I previously felt growing up in a city like Berlin with parents that did not force me into the gender I was assigned at birth. I felt like I was no longer able to express myself the way I wanted and knew. At least not without “earning” violence and repression in return. So I chose (was forced) to assimilate. I cut my hair, tried to adjust my mannerisms and create some form of congruence with this gender I was supposed to have although it was so alien to me. This choice came with the great cost of hiding or at least strongly suppressing a big part of my identity for more than 10 years.

While there are so many accounts of trans people existing throughout time and space, history has gone through great efforts of trying to erase our existence. We don’t exist in the history/sex education books, our records and archives burnt, our transcestors jailed and murdered. But yet here we are and we are going to keep existing and resisting just like our transcestors have taught us.

I came into touch with my queerness by the end of high school when I was no longer able to suppress my romantic and sexual tendencies towards all genders. I started to define myself as pansexual and for a while this label worked well for me. Mainly because throughout my entire adolescence I was not aware that trans people existed. I did not know that this was an option and that one could live a fulfilled life outside the constraints of the gender binary. This changed only in university and all of a sudden I saw myself being confronted with a second process of getting to know myself; a second coming out; a second puberty.

Or as I come to see it:

A way of coming home.

A way of coming back to the little girl that I was until I was no longer allowed to be her.

A way of coming back to myself.

Transitioning has been one of the greatest gifts that I ever gave myself.

Finally being able to define myself the way that I wanted to feels nothing less than exhilarating.

With each cream, pill and then finally injection of estrogen things are starting to finally feel right (again).

Now I am continuing this journey, and I would be extremely grateful for your support.