{"id":20027,"date":"2022-05-31T08:21:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T15:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/?p=20027"},"modified":"2023-10-17T16:13:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T23:13:48","slug":"trans-activist-rose-montoya-plastic-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/trans-activist-rose-montoya-plastic-surgery","title":{"rendered":"Trans Activist & TikTok Star Rose Montoya Says the Confidence Plastic Surgery Gives Her Is \u201cPriceless\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

RealSelf is proud to support and stand with the LGBTQIA+ community year-round. Our platform is an unbiased resource for everyone—regardless of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.<\/em><\/p>

To celebrate Pride, we’re elevating <\/em>stories of strength, truth, and transformation<\/em><\/a> from LGBTQIA+ influencers, activists, and community members—plus highlighting leaders in the field of gender confirmation surgery and hormone replacement therapy.<\/em><\/p>

Rose Montoya<\/em><\/a> is a 25-year-old activist and model living in Phoenix. She shares her journey and experience as a trans woman on <\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a> and with her more than half a million followers on <\/em>TikTok<\/em><\/a>. This is her story of coming out, getting surgery, and becoming an influential voice for the LGBTQIA+ community. <\/em><\/p>

A decade ago, I was outed as being gay, so I never had the privilege or the option to come out to my own family in the way I wanted to. That was really challenging for all of us, because my family is so religious—or, at least, they used to be. I grew up in a small, middle-of-nowhere farm town in Idaho, and my dad was a full-time worship pastor and my mom was a full-time missionary. Naturally, having a queer kid was not in their plan. I was told that I was an abomination, a sinner, and that I would go to hell for being myself. It took years for me to unprocess all of the internalized shame and guilt that I had.<\/p>

Years later, when I was away at college, I was feeling pretty good about myself and had accepted the fact that I thought men were cute, but I started having gender dysphoria and was like, Oh f*ck, what is this? <\/em>So I experimented with wearing women’s clothing and performing in drag, and I came out as trans that year, in 2015. I was lucky, this time, to be able to come out on my own. I wrote a 20-page letter to my entire family and sent it to everyone all at once. I wrote, “I’m trans—and if you don’t like that, then you don’t have a family member anymore.” I set a very, very strong boundary.<\/p>

It took 24 hours for anyone to respond, but my mom ended up calling me, and she was terrified. She said she was really worried for me and scared about my future, but what I heard at the time was that she wasn’t going to love me or accept me. She didn’t know a single trans person, and the only representation or idea that she had in her head was the serial killer from Silence of the Lambs<\/em> or someone who was the butt end of a joke or a tragic story. She didn’t see any positives. <\/p>

I didn’t see a successful future for myself either, but I knew who I was and that I couldn’t change it. I distanced myself from my family and villainized them for years, even though they wanted to be in my life, because their fear was too loud for me to feel safe and comfortable. Today, my family is my closest support system—they’re all so loving and supportive. It was a long journey of arguments and difficult conversations, and it took a decade, but we’re here and I’m incredibly thankful. <\/p>

Coming out as trans gave me so much confidence and so much euphoria that I never expected to have, but a large part of that had to do with being surrounded by queer people—my chosen family. And rather than going to church, I was going to therapy and I was getting logical responses rather than fearful, manipulative, emotional responses.<\/p>

I don’t think I ever truly felt like I was born in the wrong body—that phrase just never fully resonated with me–but after coming out as trans, I was like, “I need to start hormones.” I felt so dysphoric, and I wanted to look more feminine. I wanted to recognize the person I saw in the mirror. I always wanted surgery, from the time I came out as trans, but I wanted to wait and see what hormones did.<\/p>

My breast augmentation<\/h2>

Having breasts was something that was always really attractive to me. Even as a child, I wanted to have boobs. My family, of course, thought that was a heterosexual attraction, but it wasn’t that I wanted to be with<\/em> boobs; I wanted to have<\/em> them. Hormones did so many great things for me, but they did not give me boobs, so I tried and failed multiple times to have breast augmentation<\/a>. That was always my top-priority surgery, but I didn’t have the finances to afford it—I was living paycheck to paycheck. There were times when I was without insurance and times when the insurance I did have wouldn’t cover the procedure or I couldn’t afford the deductible. There was always something preventing me from getting surgery.<\/p>

Then quarantine hit. I was furloughed by my job as a makeup-counter manager and I was in a toxic relationship situation, so I moved back in with my parents. I was able to save a lot of money and put my own needs first, for the first time ever. I was never living for myself, fully, until 2020, when I pretty much lost everything. I lost my job, my partner, my security, my home. So I decided to put myself first and found a transgender plastic surgeon close by in Scottsdale: Dr. Ellie Zara Ley. It made me feel so comfortable that she was trans and had been through my experience and could relate to me. After seeing before-and-afters of her work and talking to some of her patients, I thought, I have to do this<\/em>. <\/p>

It was really hard to ask for help, but I knew that I had no other choice than to start a GoFundMe. I had waited five and a half years, at that point, to have surgery. I was so desperate and so ready. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the love and support I received from my family, friends, and random people on the internet who followed me or who were in the community. Within just a month and a half, I was able to fully fund my breast augmentation and book it for a month later. I was expecting to wait six months to a year—that’s pretty typical for elective surgery, especially for trans people, because there’s just so much demand and not a ton of surgeons—but because of COVID-19, a lot of people had postponed their surgeries. <\/p>

I got my breast augmentation on September 1, 2020, and it’s the greatest decision I’ve ever made. Everyone told me it would be the most painful surgery I’d ever have and that recovery would be horrible, but my excitement allowed me to dismiss all my pain and discomfort; I felt completely fine the whole time.<\/p>

Interested in breast augmentation?<\/small><\/div>Find Doctors Near You<\/a><\/div>

My boobs are absolutely perfect—trans and cis people alike always compliment them. They’ve brought me so much confidence, so much euphoria. There’s a huge difference in who I am, my personality, my confidence, the type of content I make, the types of jokes I make. Obviously, having boobs doesn’t make me any more of a woman or any more valid or any more beautiful, but the confidence that it gave me is priceless.<\/p>

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A post shared by Rose Montoya (@rosalynnemontoya)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>