as small as a world and as large as alone

3:06am July 28, 2015

totallyamelia:

fuantochi:

mytranshealth:

Historically, word of mouth has been the best resource in finding safe healthcare.

MyTransHealth will harness that power and provide a verified platform to connect the community with local doctors who care so trans and gender non-conforming people can get back to living authentically.

The time for quality healthcare is now. Help us make this a reality by donating to our Kickstarter.

I don’t get it. Since when have transgendered people not been able to just go to the doctor’s office. Living life authentically? What does that even mean.

Sure, this is great and all that you’re trying to help a group of people, but since when have they ever needed help in the first place?

Um, Hi! I’m Amelia! I’m actually one of the developers of MyTransHealth.

We started MTH because we’ve all been there, we’ve struggled to find doctors who not only understand how to treat transgender patients, but will even treat us at all. 19% of trans people have been refused care and 50% of trans people have had to educate their doctors on how to provide them with care. You can read more about these statistics here. 

We live this stuff every day and we’re constantly reading stories in our community of people having the same issues we’ve had. Trans people have literally died from treatable issues because they were refused care by doctors and EMTs.

Since announcing MyTransHealth, we’ve already heard from hundreds of trans people sharing their health care horror stories with us. We’ve heard from people who have visited doctors only to have doctors refuse to provide them with care. We’ve heard from people who can’t find doctors within hundreds of miles who have the experience or knowledge to provide even basic care, such as prescribing hormones. We’ve heard from people whose doctors don’t even treat them like humans.

I’ve personally had doctors not understand what genitals I have. I’ve fought with insurance to get medication covered. Just a couple weeks ago, our designer, robynkanner, had a doctor’s appointment with a doctor who was perplexed by her boobs, the same exact kind of boobs non-transgender women everywhere have.

41% of trans people have attempted suicide. There are a variety of reasons why the suicide rate is so high in our community, but lack of access to care is among the biggest. Lives are literally at stake.

Living authentically means I get to actually live as Amelia, as the person that I am. It means not having to hide myself and pretend to be a completely different person. It means a chance at a life worth living. It means I get to be honest with everyone I interact with.

Interesting that you’re named Amelia – so am I.  I wanted to simply change my name to Mel (I’m AFAB but genderless, a gender-neutral name would’ve been perfect), but I was persuaded to use the name Mel as a nickname and choose a feminine-sounding name as my “real” name, specifically to help me avoid medical discrimination situations, which I’ve encountered many times in the past both due to gender perception and due to disability (in my case the two get intertwined in ways people would be surprised by).  So basically I had to pick an official name that wasn’t the name I wanted, to give me a better chance of not dying because of someone else’s prejudices.

Oh but it’s just as simple as walking into a doctor’s office and getting care!  I wish someone had told me that!  Then everything would have been so simple!

(Yes, that was sarcasm.  Good grief.  I remember walking into the emergency room and the first thing they did was loudly contest the gender written on my hospital bracelet.  Not that any gender would’ve been the “right” one, but when they argue like that it always means trouble regardless of what gender they’ve decided to perceive me as.  I have routinely been mistaken both for “a man dressed as a woman” or “a woman dressed as a man” – which is how people see trans people for the most part, they see people as one gender “dressed like” or “disguised as” another gender, they don’t see who we actually are. And it only gets worse from there.)

Meanwhile I’ve had people tell me things like “But that shouldn’t happen” as if it means that it wouldn’t happen.  And “Why do you make a big deal out of being genderless?  Why can’t you just live your life?”  Well I kind of wish I could, but the world doesn’t let you off that easy.  And then somehow it’s our fault for bringing up the topic, if we’d just be quiet then everything would be fine.  Because the problems don’t exist unless you bring them up, or …something, anyway.  I don’t get it.

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