An 18-year-old transgender is crowdfunding to raise $27,000 (£20,000) for reassignment surgery as she faces a 7-year wait on the National Health Service.
Aria Serplus from Bournemouth, England, was 13 years old when she came out as trans to her supportive mother and sister.
Only a few months later, she had managed to legally change her name.
She then had to wait for a couple of years to be seen by the Tavistock clinic, the only gender identity service for children in the UK.
“I was struggling a lot with gender dysphoria [then]. Puberty was starting and a lot of my friends were getting into relationships and finding themselves,” Aria explained.
“I thought coming out as gay might make me feel a bit better – it was a step closer to what I actually wanted.
“I have an older sister, Rainbow, who’s 11 years older than me. She was really supportive too. It brought us closer.”
In 2019, Aria was offered puberty blockers to stop her from developing into a man. She is now preparing to begin hormone replacement therapy, which will make her body go through ‘female puberty’ as the teen looks forward to gender reassignment surgery.
The 18-year-old launched a GoFundMe page to slash her ‘scary’ and ‘distressing’ seven-year wait on the NHS.
“For most transgender people it’s a life-and-death situation,” Aria said. “If I wanted to do this all through the NHS, with bottom surgery, the waiting times are huge.”
The teen continued: “I try my best to think positive but it is quite distressing to know the funding isn’t there. Having to wait that long is very, very scary. At the moment, for the first appointment it’s around two to three years.
“Then for your second appointment, there’d be another year and a half (of waiting). I could be waiting five to seven years for the NHS.
“The GoFundMe will be for funding my hormones privately, or with a shared-care agreement with my GP. It will fund top surgery in 2021 or 2022 and most likely for bottom surgery as well, but I’m not 100 percent sure, because I need to see what the wait times are like [on the NHS].”
“If I had money left over from being on hormones and top surgery, and I decided to go on the NHS for bottom surgery, the money would be donated to trans charities,” Aria said.
“I think transgender people are often portrayed in a bad light but it’s no different to other medical expenses.
“It’s quite expensive from the get-go, but I do see it as a necessity.”
“Going through puberty was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever [faced],” Aria shared. “I was lucky because I was a late bloomer. I started puberty blockers at 16 and I was only just starting in the second stage. That usually happens around 13.
“If I wasn’t trans, that would have been quite distressing for me, but being trans, I felt that my body was working with me.
“I was spending everyday so scared I’d wake up with a manly voice, facial hair and broad shoulders, developing into a triangle shape. It was a very, very distressing time and I struggled with that a lot.”
“I haven’t 100 per cent decided if I’d have bottom surgery on the NHS or not yet. If I was to go private, it’d be around £28,000. It’s a huge amount of money,” she added.
“The top surgery is implants. Breast augmentation isn’t offered on the NHS at the moment for transgender people because it’s seen as purely cosmetic.
“That’s the physical aspect. It’ll also help me a lot with my mental health and knowing I’m one step closer to being who I am.”
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