Hi! I’m Seb (or you may know me as Mitch, either is fine) and I’m 33 years old. I’ve been living as the man I am since I was seventeen, so that’s sixteen years now. Wow, almost half my life. For pretty much that entire time, I’ve been trying to save for top surgery, and have just never managed to make it work. One emergency expense after another has eaten away at my attempted savings. Finally, I’m turning to you!

Though I finally have health insurance, the only surgeon in town who accepts the insurance requires a BMI that would, without giving details, be both impossible and unhealthy for me to achieve. (I’m a fat guy, I always have been, I make no excuses or apologies for it. No need to donate or ever speak to me if that offends your sensibilities.) I deserve this affirming surgery that will enable me to live more confidently, even though I’m fat, and my primary care physician agrees. Unfortunately, going to a different surgeon does mean it’s highly likely that I’ll have to pay for this whole procedure out of pocket.

I’ve set the goal a bit higher than the average cost of a double incision bilateral mastectomy, because even if I’m able to pay for and get surgery, I’ll be out of work for approximately two months afterwards due to the inherent physical restrictions of having had my whole chest reconstructed. Just getting enough to cover the surgery would be great, above and beyond what I’m expecting, but anything more than that will go to helping me stay housed and fed during that recovery period.

Did I gif this match specifically for this nonsense?

1. Fuck it, it’s fiction

2. Let me look up real estate listings, so I can plot out subway routes and schedules and see if this walk really is long enough for them to have this conversation.

Now that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and The White House have finalized new nondiscrimination provisions under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, it is more important than ever to know your rights and what to do if you face discrimination. 

To better explain what these protections mean, Out2Enroll partnered with trans comic artist, Dylan Edwards, on a series of illustrated discrimination situations.