- Samantha Allen was born a man and wanted surgery to create a vagina
- She was told it would cost $20,000 and her insurance would only pay part
- She took to a crowdfunding website to raise the rest of the money
- Amazingly, she reached the total in less than 24 hours and had the surgery
06:35 EST, 7 May 2014
|
06:47 EST, 7 May 2014
A transgender woman has told of her joy after internet users paid for her to have a vagina.
Samantha Allen said she is used to receiving abuse online, so could not believe it when she raised the $8,000 needed for her surgery in less than 24 hours.
Ms Allen, a doctoral fellow in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University, in Atlanta, raised the money through crowdfunding.
A transgender woman has had surgery to create a vagina after raising $8,000 on a crowdfunding website
On The Daily Dot she wrote: ‘I’ve been called every anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-transgender slur in the dictionary.
‘I’ve read three thousand word e-mails from anonymous readers who just want to let me know that I’m a disgrace to my community.
‘So if you had told me last year that I would one day be tearfully thanking the internet for supporting my gender transition, I would have laughed in your face.’
Ms Allen, who was born a man, wanted to have surgery to remove her penis and replace it with a vagina.
She discovered that the operation would cost about $20,000.
Her health insurance would cover part of the cost but she would need to pay the remaining $8,000.
Samantha Allen says she could not believe it when she reached the fundraising target in less than 24 hours (file picture)
Unable to afford this herself, she and her wife, Corey Burke, created an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to pay for the gender reassignment surgery.
She explained that she saw having a penis as ‘a source of suffocating shame and self-loathing’ meaning she knew she had to have the surgery.
On her IndieGoGo page she added that she has been taking female hormones since November 2012 and that she has ‘spent [her] entire life trying to correct the circumstances of [her] birth.
She wrote
that she was born into a devout Mormon family and that when she left the
Mormon church she was told by her father that her decision would have
‘eternal consequences’.
She took this to mean that he thought she would go to hell.
Ms Allen says that since the operation she now loves her body for the first time (file picture)
She went on to explain that she did not believe she would raise all of the money through crowdfunding but that she hoped it might make a dent in the total.
However, she couldn’t believe her eyes when she found that every time she refreshed the page the amount raised had increased by $500.
She says by the end of the first day, she had received almost $5,000 in donations and that she reached the target the next day.
She added it took her a little while to realise that her life was about to change forever thanks to the generosity of strangers.
Then, on April 23 this year she underwent surgery, explaining surgery isn’t as complex as one might think – it simply involves ‘rearranging’ the tissue that’s already there.
She explained that during the operation, the surgeon used the existing tissue to create the vagina as well as a clitoris.
Upon waking from surgery, the first thing she did was Tweet: ‘I have a vagina’, as she felt she should let the people who paid for it know.
And that after the operation, she felt a profound sense of calm wash over her and unlike anything else she had experience – for the first time in her life, she felt beautiful and loved her whole body.
She will now have to use a sex toy to maintain the shape of her new vagina until it has healed.
But, she concludes, the internet has now changed her life for the better.
or comment on this article
-
WARNING GRAPHIC: Man arrested for punting cat
-
Boob-grabbing Clippers fan is the new Katherine Webb
-
Is this Sasquatch caught on camera in Canadian mountains?
-
Terrifying moment man is knocked down and dragged by a GHOST
-
Emily’s video diary and footage of her abortion procedure
-
George Clooney’s girlfriend Amal Alamuddin in New York
-
Football field-sized bridge collapses after catching fire
-
GRAPHIC CONTENT: Mom beats daughter for Facebook pics
-
Spear fisherman missing after suspected shark attack
-
Katsura Kan and Sharon Stern perform butoh dance
-
Video: The moment circus platform collapsed
-
Passengers confront man ‘pleasuring himself’ on crowded bus
-
How I was left suicidal, turned down $10million in offers…
-
The economy class prince: William takes cheap seats for…
-
$32 million up in smoke! Traffic chaos after bridge the size…
-
‘I wish we’d killed more!’: White supremacist couple kiss…
-
September bride! George Clooney set to marry Amal Alamuddine…
-
Gay college basketball star Derrick Gordon, 22, goes public…
-
Widow is gang-raped as ‘punishment’ for having an affair…
-
‘I wanted to show it wasn’t scary’: Woman posts video of her…
-
Is this Bigfoot? Watch hiker’s footage of a ‘Sasquatch’…
-
‘Had no idea I was on!’: Little known TV sports hostess…
-
New mom dies two months after giving birth to premature…
-
V Stiviano has ADOPTED two African American children in the…
Comments (0)
what you think
No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.
Find out now