March 30, 2016
By Matt Petras

Today, in a media landscape full of corporatist phonies like CNN, passionate people are willing to fork up the cash to support independent media. Many diverse voices on the internet today are fueled by crowdfunding, like Laura Kate Dale, or “LauraKBuzz” as she often calls herself. Laura is a trans woman who creates content criticizing video games; much of this content is silly but a lot of it also contains in-depth political analysis.

Something especially wonderful has happened to Laura recently; she has raised over her goal of 20,000 pounds (around 28,209 US dollars) on a separate crowdfunding campaign for gender surgery for herself.

While she receives financial compensation for freelance gigs and her position as the UK Editor of Destructoid, a popular gaming enthusiast website, Laura gets a lot of money from individual contributions. Laura has a Patreon account, a website that allows individuals to give money to a content-creator on a regular schedule, often one month. She currently collects $1,975 dollars a month from regular people who want to see her write more articles, record more podcasts, make more videos, and so on and so forth.

Laura decided to start a “GoFundMe” campaign to fund surgery from private doctors. A resident of the United Kingdom, Laura attempted to get surgery through public services but that didn’t work out for her.

“The [National Health Service] sucks when it comes to promptly helping people access the treatment they need for Gender Dysphoria,” she wrote on the campaign’s page. “They drag their heels at every stage, leaving people like me living full time in our new gender roles, but without access to medical help.”

She is looking to have two surgeries performed.

“20,000 [pounds] would allow me to have a Tracheal Shave, reducing the size of my adam’s apple dramatically, as well as undergoing a Vaginoplasty in the UL,” she wrote.

What’s really amazing and uplifting in a world in which trans people are ignored and murdered is that Laura has received the money she needs to be much more comfortable with her body. Selflessly, Laura has suggested that anyone who still wishes to contribute should instead give their funds to other trans people in need of surgery.

Check out her original campaign page here:

https://www.gofundme.com/LauraKBuzz

The two links she provided for those who continue to contribute are here:

https://www.gofundme.com/c9uw7ky8

https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/keiratopsurgery