When I first launched KickStartHer I set out to raise money for a series of gender confirmation surgeries, which included sexual reassignment (the vaginoplasty) and facial feminization. The facial surgeries I was most interested in getting were a tracheal shave (to remove the adams apple), jaw reduction, and a nose job.
I have done considerably more research and reflection in the 6 months since KickStartHer began, and I have decided, for the time being anyway, not to go forward with facial feminization. My reasons are two fold: First, as a feminist, I have always tried to challenge the body image issues brought about by our media-driven, harshly unrealistic standards of beauty. I feel it's important to draw a distinction between what procedures I'm undertaking for a sense of physical and spiritual completion, and which I was drawn to out of a more superficial definition of femininity. Secondly, as a singer, I don't want to risk damaging the voice I am only just now finally beginning to find for myself. Barbra Streisand would never approve of me taking a scalpel to my larynx or my schnoz.
As I have maintained throughout this process, my attitude toward all aspects of medical gender transition--hormones, surgery, hair removal, etc.--is that this is about what is right for me personally. I am not making any broad-stroke statement on the merits or morality of facial feminization for anyone else.
Aside from affirming for myself the natural beauty of my facial bone structure, this also means that my my fundraising goal for KickStartHer has been cut in half, bringing me suddenly much closer to the finish line!