"This is not an elective procedure for me. This was a life-saving procedure."
Skyler Jay's campaign to finance his transition surgery was featured on "Queer Eye." Four years later, he is helping others achieve their transition goals.
Skyler Jay's campaign to finance his transition surgery was featured on "Queer Eye." Four years later, he is helping others achieve their transition goals.
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00:00Oh, he just looked down for the first time he's an inspiration to achieve my top surgery
00:09It took me about a decade without top surgery. I really don't think that I would still be here
00:23This is not an elective procedure for me
00:25This was a life-saving procedure that needed to be done and to have an organization to be able to support you
00:32I want to be able to provide that as best as I can
00:42The earliest that I can remember thinking about wanting top surgery or a surgery like top surgery would probably be about the age of 12
00:50Well, I was in my early 20s when I started coming out as transgender
00:54My parents don't agree with my transition
00:57Are not supportive of my transition. And so I had to cut ties from my family
01:03many years ago in order to
01:06Continue to move forward. That's when I really started to realize how expensive it was going to be
01:10You know upwards of $10,000 or more
01:25People wanted to say well, oh, it's an elective surgery, you know, you don't really need that. I was suicidal
01:32I could barely read a paragraph in my book while I was trying to study
01:36Without my mind wandering to how uncomfortable I was in my body
01:44Took me about a decade I had saved
01:47Every penny in the couch I could find I sold stuff that I didn't necessarily want or need to sell
01:54I scraped everything I could from every paycheck I could and I had a very good trans friend of mine
02:00That saw me struggling and saw me hurting and they were like, you know Skylar
02:04You should just put your ego aside and ask for help
02:24I
02:29Honestly can say that I would not be here without those people helping me get to where I am today
02:54You
03:09The system is set up
03:11Against us barring us from these surgeries and making this, you know kind of path more or less impossible without help
03:25You
03:32Transitional scholarships are not very common
03:35There's only a handful of them in the United States and those are scholarships that go directly into the community to help
03:42People achieve their medical transitional goals like I needed help to achieve mine for our very first scholarship round
03:49We had over a hundred applicants
03:51You know and we were able to choose two out of the hundred
03:54but that's a lot of people that had to go without the help and I'm
03:59Beyond proud to be able to help the community in ways that I know I needed and that so many other people need out
04:05there