Book and comic reviews, and more from Amy Walker, a trans, disabled writer and reviewer from the UK.
Tuesday, 4 August 2015
#TransHealthFail Revealing Serious Concerns in Transgender Health Care
A new hashtag as been making the rounds in the trans Twitter community today, #TransHealthFail. The hashtag, which was started by MyTransHealth, has been encouraging transgender people from all over the world to share some of their medical experiences.
The results have been amazing, with hundreds of people sending in their stories, unfortunately the things they're saying seem to be almost identical, health care systems all over the world don't know how to treat trans people and continually insult, demean and endanger patients.
Reports range from front of house staff who misgender and dead name patients without care for their well being or dignity, doctors who refuse to treat trans people and even therapist who specialise in gender issues who refuse to accept patients gender identities.
Medical professionals are vitally important to the transgender community, without them trans people are trapped in bodies that aren't their true selves. we're forced to go through life pretending to be someone that we're not, treated as different from who we really are on the inside because people can't get past what we look like.
Medical treatment to assist with physical transition is massively important, without it the damage that could occur to the trans community is unthinkable. However, based on some of the tweets that I've seen today it looks like a hell of a lot of trans people are having to face those kinds of struggles already. If people are being humiliated, treated like they're crazy, refused medical treatment, medication and psychological help is it any wonder that so many transgender people report suffering from depression, or that the suicide rate is so disproportionately high.
Society as a who has a long way to come in order to treat trans people the way we deserve to be treated, but its also apparent that even the medical community is lacking in the sympathy or the awareness that they need in order to treat trans people. Things need to start changing.
Amy.
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