Limerick Man, Will Keohane, has asked the community for help in raising enough funds to achieve the top surgery (double mastectomy) which he has “wanted since before I had the language to describe it.”
Currently, Will binds every day which he says is uncomfortable: “I don’t want to have to keep struggling to breathe”.
Thanks to donations from friends, family and people he doesn’t even know, Will has already raised over €6,000 of the €10,000 he needs to go to Toronto for surgery.
Will has family and friends in Toronto who can look after him post-surgery and has already found a doctor there.
In Ireland, many trans people travel to Poland for gender-affirming surgery due to extremely long waiting lists in the Irish healthcare system. Waiting for years on end is not feasible for many.
The only surgeon in Ireland who performed top surgery has since retired, meaning it is not an option for Ireland’s trans masculine community to have this surgery at home.
“I first spoke to a doctor about medical transition over a year ago. Despite having a waiting list number, it will take many more years before I get to see someone in this country.
“I am not just a trans person. I am a friend, a student, a son, a brother. Unfortunately, because of the systemic barriers Irish trans people face in accessing healthcare, it’s been hard to focus on the other aspects of my identity lately.
“Legal and medical transition is expensive, time-consuming, tiring and disheartening. I’m looking forward to having more time to focus on baking banana bread again for my friends,” Will says on his GoFundMe page.
Will adds that Poland is not an option for him as he would have no-one there to care for him in the two weeks post-surgery.
Will is asking anyone who is able to do so, to help make this happen by donating to the GoFundMe campaign here.
Many of Ireland’s trans community have had their need for surgery realised through the help of their wider community.
In this month’s GCN, Noah Halpin details his top surgery journey, which was made possible through the support of the community on a crowdfunding platform. Read about his journey here.
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