Washington Heights based transgender artist, activist, and choreographer Shakina Nayfack is relying on the kindness of strangers to pay for her transition through crowdfunding website YouCaring.com.  YouCaring, a Kickstarter-like website that allows users to donate money to people for their "personal causes & life events," is a little less than thrilled about the prospect of the surgery but doesn't seem to be putting up much of a fight against it.

Despite the website's goal, which is to supposedly helps fund "medical expenses, memorial/funeral expenses, tuition help, adoption fundraising, mission trips, animal/pet rescue or helping a neighbor in need," founder Brock Ketcher found the campaign "disturbing."  However, Ketcher is not about to stop Nayfack's plea:

[People] are going through different life circumstances, many times with things I could not possibly understand or necessarily agree with ... Individuals are free to use our site for causes that are personally important to them, even if it may not line up with our personal views or morals ... Obviously, we never intended for our site to be used for causes such as this, but if an individual is sincere and abides by our terms of service we wish them the best.

According to The NY Daily News, the idea came to Nayfack after she had contributed to a handful of her friends' performances and art pieces:

As a young artist, I've used online crowdsourcing campaigns to help my friends make albums, produce shows and make films ... In the last year and a half, I have stepped toward my medical transition, so I would joke to my friends, 'I should go online and 'kickstart' my vagina!’

You can contribute to Nayfack's campaign, KickStartHer, over here.

h/t: Gothamist