Public step up to support Horsham transgender actor’s bid for life-changing op

Twenty-year-old Alfie Isaac Jallow launched a fundraising appeal so that he could have the op after realising that the NHS could not help.

And within days, Alfie had raised more than £5,000 of his £7,100 target.

Alfie, who grew up in Horsham and went to Millais School, said: “I came out trans in my last year of secondary school and things started to fall into place.”

He said it had since been ‘a wild journey full of success and achievements but also endless walls to climb and battles to fight.’

But since leaving school Alfie has had a successful career as an actor performing in theatres all over the country, as well as the USA - and at Horsham’s Capitol Theatre.

“Theatre changed my life. It showed me doors that were previously closed and offered me a key,” he said.

“From that moment my mindset started to change, I started working towards a future and I turned my life around.”

But after five years of battling “to just become my authentic self” Alfie was told by a gender clinic that he would have to wait two years to undergo a subcutaneous mastectomy.

“I was prepared to wait it out. I thought that was my only option until I had the realisation that this also meant I would have to wait another two years for me to become whole.

“It’s waiting for me to be able to start my life. I don’t want to wait to be complete any longer. Everything else adds up, it’s just this. Going private with my health care really is now the only way.

“It’s important to remember that I’m not the only one in this situation. Lack of care for transgender folk is an epidemic itself. Waiting lists for trans people to just receive initial appointments are at an all-time high with waiting lists being as long as 44 months.”

Alfie, who has had constant support from family and friends, has been overwhelmed by the reaction to his fundraising appeal. “I cannot put into words how grateful I am for all the love and kindness shown,” he said. “Never in a million years did I expect this kind of reaction.”

Alfie started testosterone treatment two and a half years ago and “things started to fall into place. I started to fall into place.

“From small things like my feet growing were massive milestones.

“My voice broke and I grew a pretty cool beard and I finally didn’t have to view myself from the inside out to smile.

“I went from boy to man and it saved my life.”

The surgery that he’s now awaiting, would, he says, “give me the liberation to be myself.

“I dream of something that most people my age don’t even think about. I want to look in the mirror and see me, how I’m meant to be staring straight back at me.”

See https://uk.gf.me/v/c/zqt6/alfies-top-surgery-fund