Help me afford top surgery

Hi y'all, for those who don't know me, I'm a disbled, neurodivergent, trans man living in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm also a gradstudent in Astronomy currently finishing up my MSc, an artist and a poet.

In South Africa we don't really have many options to pursue transition, our private medical aids and insurance don't cover any of it, not even hospital costs as they classify gender affirming care as a cosmetic process instead of the life saving medical care we all know it is. Going through the public health sector is also not really an option as the waitlist is over 26 years long due to our national government again sees gender affirming care as purely cosmetic and only gives one spot for any gender affirming surgery per year.

In South Africa there's also still alot of stigma around being trans and trans people face violence and discrimination on a daily basis, so in addition to the usual benefits of getting top surgery, it will also greatly improve my safety

This is however very expensive, being a student I am on a very tight budget, living paycheck to paycheck already, trying to save up for a procedure that vosts nearly my entire yearly income is next to impossible, I also can't turn to my family in this instance as they are extremely transphobic

So the only option I have left is to try and crowdfund it. As I am South African I unfortunately can't use go fund me, so I'm using the south african croudfunding service, backabuddy, it does accept paypall and I-Pay

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

So far I have raised:

R11 111.00/R120 000.00

$590.13/$6 374.00

(usd for convenience, conversion rate on 6 march 2024, $1 = R18.83)

So the pastor in question is being a shithead about lgbtq people again, and is one of the lead pastors in an attempt to get one of the major south african churches to retract their statement accepting gay marrige (that was only made in 2019 after a major court case) his and about half of the congregations of this specific curch have now formed a new sinode to fight against the main one. While I don't care much for christianity or the church, this shit is gonna end badly, it's gonna cause so many more kids to grow up in an environment like I did, one where they have to constantly hide who they are, cause the church is teaching them, their peers and their parents to hate.

So I would like nothing more this easter than having their inbox filled to the brim with mail telling them how they're hurting people

Here's their email address if you'd like to participate:

Unfortunately I don't have a convenient template for y'all to copy paste

The family pastor decided to preach about prayer yesterday. About how a Christian should understand the the answer to a prayer can be no, or not yet. That sometimes you need to work on yourself and change yourself before your prayer will be answered.

But here's the problem, I never prayed for anything other than for god to change me. The prayer I said over a million times is the one where I asked him to make me into who he wants me to be. The one where I ask him to take away my gay thoughts and desires, to make into a straight cis girl. Which is what the church believes is the only way I'm supposed to exist. Those prayers were never answered, which leads me to one of three conclusions.

1. God is a sadistic shithead who enjoys watching people suffer and get abused by his supposed children, and enjoys sending people to hell

2. There's nothing wrong with me being the bi trans man that I am, I'm already who god wants me to be and the whole church is wrong. But they'll never believe that coming from me.

3. He doesn't exist

Number 3 seems most likely, cause I've never gotten any answers. And in the case of number 1, I can't worship a god like that. And in the case of number 2, I still can't worship that god. He and his people have committed too many artrocities for him to deserve kind of worship regardless of his stance on lgbtq people.

And I wish I could talk to that pastor about this, get him to see what he has done over years and years. But I can't, if I do that he'll talk to my parents and I'll be in trouble for it all again. And we know what happend last time I came out. I very narrowly avoided ending up on the street. I very narrowly avoided multiple broken bones. I had to wear long sleeved clothing in the middle of summer to hide the bruses that were too sensitive to cover with makeup. I don't want to do that again.

But I need answers. I need to know if that pastor knows what he did, what damage he's done, that he's done damage. I'm not even the only one from this congregation with experiences like this. I wonder if he knows that when he preaches that being gay is a sin it hurts people, it makes our lives so much harder and for what? For a fictional man in the sky? For an imaginary friend?

One roman soldier gaudring Jesus's tomb turns to the other and says: "Y'know what wil be fucking hilarious?" And now we have christianity

Yeah yeah religious trauma and internalized homophobia suck but sometimes I get these moments of overwhelming joy at the fact that I am queer and proud I am not religious anymore I have a life ahead of me where I can celebrate pleasure and love and intellectual freedom without constraint like fuck yeah this is what I'm sticking around for!!!!!!!

Tbh, thats a scary, painful thing when you're an adult too, cause yeah, you might have the option to leave or openly declare your disbelief, but at what cost?

You stand to lose your entire family and in many cases your entire community, to be shamed by them, to be ridiculed by them, you'll turn into the very thing they fear most and chance are you won't have anyone else in those moments. Its very insular and talking to outsiders is only encouraged if it's for the purpose of bringing them to Jesus, so even as an adult you often have no one to turn to and nowhere to go. It's an impossible situation to be in even for adults, a child is even more trapped and even more at risk. And even as a child you know that. It's not said in so many words, but the consequences of losing your faith and having someone find out is taught from very early on.

As a child it's not just you who has to face them, it's your siblings and parents too, it's your entire family, cause as a child your having faith is seen as your parent's responsibility, and they let you know that, if you fuck up, if you for one second look like you don't want to play their game your parents tell you "how do you think this makes me look?" It very quickly stops being concern for your soul and starts being "if you don't decide to stop making this family look bad you won't have one anymore"

And you know this happens, and that your family will do it too, cause you've seen it happened, you've seen another kid's family sitting in the very back of the curch and not staying for tea, you hear what the adults whisper about them, and you realize you have a choice, either play the game and play it well, or be the monster that puts your own family in that situation, and that's not much of a choice

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

Ty @stardestroyer81 for this gem I could not have conceived coming out of this blog

it should not be stressful to question your faith. it should not be anxiety inducing to wonder if the church is right. and it absolutely should not be fucking terrifying to stop believing.

Help me afford top surgery

Hi y'all, for those who don't know me, I'm a disbled, neurodivergent, trans man living in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm also a gradstudent in Astronomy currently finishing up my MSc, an artist and a poet.

In South Africa we don't really have many options to pursue transition, our private medical aids and insurance don't cover any of it, not even hospital costs as they classify gender affirming care as a cosmetic process instead of the life saving medical care we all know it is. Going through the public health sector is also not really an option as the waitlist is over 26 years long due to our national government again sees gender affirming care as purely cosmetic and only gives one spot for any gender affirming surgery per year.

In South Africa there's also still alot of stigma around being trans and trans people face violence and discrimination on a daily basis, so in addition to the usual benefits of getting top surgery, it will also greatly improve my safety

This is however very expensive, being a student I am on a very tight budget, living paycheck to paycheck already, trying to save up for a procedure that vosts nearly my entire yearly income is next to impossible, I also can't turn to my family in this instance as they are extremely transphobic

So the only option I have left is to try and crowdfund it. As I am South African I unfortunately can't use go fund me, so I'm using the south african croudfunding service, backabuddy, it does accept paypall and I-Pay

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

So far I have raised:

R11 111.00/R120 000.00

$590.13/$6 374.00

(usd for convenience, conversion rate on 6 march 2024, $1 = R18.83)

I just found this on reddit and it's the funniest thing I've seen all day.

You are not:

- chewed gum

- an old shoe

- used tape

- a cup of spit

- a crushed rose

- a stretched out rubber band

- a shredded heart

- dirty

You are not dirty, or broken, or bad. You are human. Deeply, wonderfully human.

Help me afford top surgery

Hi y'all, for those who don't know me, I'm a disbled, neurodivergent, trans man living in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm also a gradstudent in Astronomy currently finishing up my MSc, an artist and a poet.

In South Africa we don't really have many options to pursue transition, our private medical aids and insurance don't cover any of it, not even hospital costs as they classify gender affirming care as a cosmetic process instead of the life saving medical care we all know it is. Going through the public health sector is also not really an option as the waitlist is over 26 years long due to our national government again sees gender affirming care as purely cosmetic and only gives one spot for any gender affirming surgery per year.

In South Africa there's also still alot of stigma around being trans and trans people face violence and discrimination on a daily basis, so in addition to the usual benefits of getting top surgery, it will also greatly improve my safety

This is however very expensive, being a student I am on a very tight budget, living paycheck to paycheck already, trying to save up for a procedure that vosts nearly my entire yearly income is next to impossible, I also can't turn to my family in this instance as they are extremely transphobic

So the only option I have left is to try and crowdfund it. As I am South African I unfortunately can't use go fund me, so I'm using the south african croudfunding service, backabuddy, it does accept paypall and I-Pay

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

So far I have raised:

R11 101.00/R120 000.00

$575.91/$6 250.00

(usd for convenience)

Help me afford top surgery

Hi y'all, for those who don't know me, I'm a disbled, neurodivergent, trans man living in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm also a gradstudent in Astronomy currently finishing up my MSc, an artist and a poet.

In South Africa we don't really have many options to pursue transition, our private medical aids and insurance don't cover any of it, not even hospital costs as they classify gender affirming care as a cosmetic process instead of the life saving medical care we all know it is. Going through the public health sector is also not really an option as the waitlist is over 26 years long due to our national government again sees gender affirming care as purely cosmetic and only gives one spot for any gender affirming surgery per year.

In South Africa there's also still alot of stigma around being trans and trans people face violence and discrimination on a daily basis, so in addition to the usual benefits of getting top surgery, it will also greatly improve my safety

This is however very expensive, being a student I am on a very tight budget, living paycheck to paycheck already, trying to save up for a procedure that vosts nearly my entire yearly income is next to impossible, I also can't turn to my family in this instance as they are extremely transphobic

So the only option I have left is to try and croudfund it. As I am South African I unfortunately can't use go fund me, so I'm using the south african croudfunding service, backabuddy, it does accept paypall and I-Pay

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated

So far I have raised:

R0.00/R120000.00

$0.0/$6250.00

(usd for convenience)

I am not lukewarm

When I was formed

I was red hot

Now I'm cold as ice

Yet God will spit me out of his mouth

For I am glass

If you chew me

I'll break

If you chew me

I'll cut you

i think the reason why “cultural christianity” discourse on tumblr has been such a fucking disaster is because people fundamentally don’t understand what culture is. they don’t understand that 1. every culture has overlaps with every other culture, 2. every religion has overlaps with every other religion, 3. you can consume a cultural product without being part of that culture, 4. you can consume a religious product without being part of that religion and without being culturally part of that religion. so they think that if someone celebrates christmas, they’re automatically culturally christian, all other parts of their identity be damned, and that’s just a fundamentally stupid idea

i think that number 1 and 2 are big things that people trip up on a LOT because they think that if something exists in one religion, then it must be exclusive to it, so if you show any behaviours or beliefs similar to the religion, then you must be culturally that religion, and that’s just really stupid, cause every religion and every culture has overlaps with every other religion adn every other culture that exists. many religions have a belief that people are fundamentally evil and need to be restrained by morality and virtues. many religions have a belief in a supreme god who oversees everyone all the time. many religions have issues with guilt and shame for simple pleasures. none of these things are unique to christianity, and trying to claim that any of them are uniquely christian or “culturally christian” is frankly extremely christian-centric and ignorant, as it pretends that no other religions in the world have these issues

IDs: A black and white graphic of four open mouths with the words “It’s not blasphemy God wronged me first.” The second image is the same graphic inverted. ED.

What does it matter if we're remembered if we get to enjoy a nice meal tonight?

What does it matter if there's no god if we get to enjoy the sunset together?

What does it matter if there's nothing after death if I get to live here, today, with you?

That's all I'll ever need. To share a life with you.