I wasn't asking for a moral prescriptioin
Feb. 26th, 2009 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
axesladeDoing research for an argument paper for Comp...came upon an article by Leslie Feinberg about the need for health care reform for trans folk...oh my god. I had to walk away at one point. I think you'll be able to see why.
I'm sitting in a cardiologist's waiting room filling out my intake forms. The tip of my pen hovers above the ubiquitous binary boxes. Female or male? I was born female-- bodied and I identify as female-as a lesbian butch. However, some people see me as a feminine male. And whether they guess male or female, I am always perceived as "queer" because my gender expression is very fluid and complex. I am transgender. Which box do I check to get the medical attention I need so badly right now?
I sit here recalling recent studies showing that females my age are more likely than males to die from heart attacks. The symptoms of females are not necessarily the same as those of men. Distorted through the lens of sexism, these symptoms are often not recognized or taken seriously enough. I consider all this and decide to check the "F" box, hoping the doctor will take my birth sex into account in listening to my cardiac symptoms.
One of the 2 women at the front desk takes the clipboard and flashes me a generous smile. "Have a seat, sir." Minutes later she calls out, "Miss Feinberg, do you have insurance?" I stand up; she looks bewildered. To her credit, she recovers quickly. She goes out of her way to be warm to me.
I sit back down and leaf through a magazine. The other woman at the front desk explodes in derisive laughter. She comments out loud about a patient's records: "Do you know what's on this man's chart? This man had a breast biopsy!" She snorts and snickers in a mean-spirited way. Everyone in the waiting room can hear her.
You may be appalled at that breach of patient confidentiality. But as a transgender patient, I have another take on it. I hear her backwardness about sex and gender variance, and I hear her intolerance. I feel more fearful about this appointment today My reluctance isn't just because of how I might be treated by the front office staff. I dread seeing a physician because of a lifetime of experiences.
Five years ago, while battling an undiagnosed case of bacterial endocarditis, I was refused care at a Jersey City emergency room. After the physician who examined me discovered that I am female-bodied, he ordered me out of the emergency room despite the fact that my temperature was above 104 deg F (40 deg C). He said I had a fever "because you are a very troubled person."
Weeks later I was hospitalized with the same illness in New York City in a Catholic hospital where management insists patients be put in wards on the basis of birth sex. They place transsexual women who have completed sex-reassignment surgery in male wards. Putting me in a female ward created a furor. I awoke in the night to find staff standing around my bed ridiculing my body and referring to me as a "Martian." The next day the staff refused to work unless "if was removed from the floor. These and other expressions of hatred forced me to leave.
Had I died from this illness, the real pathogen would have been bigotry.
...
Everyone who is living in a sex other than the one assigned to them by a stranger at birth, or who is born on the anatomical spectrum between female and male, or who cross-dresses, or who is perceived as a feminine male or masculine female, or who is gender-ambiguous or gender-contradictory, can most likely recount similar horror stories. As a result, many of us fear contact with health professionals.
Too many of us have already died unnecessarily, have been turned away from a doctor's office or a hospital, or have delayed pursuing preventive or emergency care because of previous mistreatment. And many individuals who are socially identifiable as transsexual or gender-variant are so marginalized by oppression-specifically, in the workforce-- that we lack health insurance and a primary care physician. Those who do have insurance often cannot afford health care plans that allow us to choose our own doctors. Then, trans patients hesitate to go to HMOs and start over each time with a new physician who might be hostile.
There are also many people in this society who may not identify as trans but who have been humiliated because of some perceived difference in their secondary sexual characteristics or because their mode of self-- expression is not considered "man" enough or "woman" enough. All of this shaming drives people underground. As a result, there is no way of knowing how large a segment of the population avoids seeking health care because they have been wounded by sex and gender oppression.
...
birth biology is not the sole determinant of what it means to be a woman or a man. That is demonstrated by the bravery of transsexuals, who live in the sex that feels like home.
Gender expression is also represented most accurately by a continuum. Those pink and blue birth caps in delivery rooms are knitted with inaccurate assumptions that girls will grow up to be feminine and boys to be masculine. Trying to talk about gender articulation using only the terms widely used in English today-feminine, masculine, androgynous-is as ludicrous as trying to make yourself understood in a language composed of 3 words....
If you want the full article, ask me. But...god. This is why I'm scared (among many reasons, sigh). I'm afraid that one of my many medical issues will get worse to a point where I need care, and that I'll be refused because I won't answer to ma'am.
I'm sitting in a cardiologist's waiting room filling out my intake forms. The tip of my pen hovers above the ubiquitous binary boxes. Female or male? I was born female-- bodied and I identify as female-as a lesbian butch. However, some people see me as a feminine male. And whether they guess male or female, I am always perceived as "queer" because my gender expression is very fluid and complex. I am transgender. Which box do I check to get the medical attention I need so badly right now?
I sit here recalling recent studies showing that females my age are more likely than males to die from heart attacks. The symptoms of females are not necessarily the same as those of men. Distorted through the lens of sexism, these symptoms are often not recognized or taken seriously enough. I consider all this and decide to check the "F" box, hoping the doctor will take my birth sex into account in listening to my cardiac symptoms.
One of the 2 women at the front desk takes the clipboard and flashes me a generous smile. "Have a seat, sir." Minutes later she calls out, "Miss Feinberg, do you have insurance?" I stand up; she looks bewildered. To her credit, she recovers quickly. She goes out of her way to be warm to me.
I sit back down and leaf through a magazine. The other woman at the front desk explodes in derisive laughter. She comments out loud about a patient's records: "Do you know what's on this man's chart? This man had a breast biopsy!" She snorts and snickers in a mean-spirited way. Everyone in the waiting room can hear her.
You may be appalled at that breach of patient confidentiality. But as a transgender patient, I have another take on it. I hear her backwardness about sex and gender variance, and I hear her intolerance. I feel more fearful about this appointment today My reluctance isn't just because of how I might be treated by the front office staff. I dread seeing a physician because of a lifetime of experiences.
Five years ago, while battling an undiagnosed case of bacterial endocarditis, I was refused care at a Jersey City emergency room. After the physician who examined me discovered that I am female-bodied, he ordered me out of the emergency room despite the fact that my temperature was above 104 deg F (40 deg C). He said I had a fever "because you are a very troubled person."
Weeks later I was hospitalized with the same illness in New York City in a Catholic hospital where management insists patients be put in wards on the basis of birth sex. They place transsexual women who have completed sex-reassignment surgery in male wards. Putting me in a female ward created a furor. I awoke in the night to find staff standing around my bed ridiculing my body and referring to me as a "Martian." The next day the staff refused to work unless "if was removed from the floor. These and other expressions of hatred forced me to leave.
Had I died from this illness, the real pathogen would have been bigotry.
...
Everyone who is living in a sex other than the one assigned to them by a stranger at birth, or who is born on the anatomical spectrum between female and male, or who cross-dresses, or who is perceived as a feminine male or masculine female, or who is gender-ambiguous or gender-contradictory, can most likely recount similar horror stories. As a result, many of us fear contact with health professionals.
Too many of us have already died unnecessarily, have been turned away from a doctor's office or a hospital, or have delayed pursuing preventive or emergency care because of previous mistreatment. And many individuals who are socially identifiable as transsexual or gender-variant are so marginalized by oppression-specifically, in the workforce-- that we lack health insurance and a primary care physician. Those who do have insurance often cannot afford health care plans that allow us to choose our own doctors. Then, trans patients hesitate to go to HMOs and start over each time with a new physician who might be hostile.
There are also many people in this society who may not identify as trans but who have been humiliated because of some perceived difference in their secondary sexual characteristics or because their mode of self-- expression is not considered "man" enough or "woman" enough. All of this shaming drives people underground. As a result, there is no way of knowing how large a segment of the population avoids seeking health care because they have been wounded by sex and gender oppression.
...
birth biology is not the sole determinant of what it means to be a woman or a man. That is demonstrated by the bravery of transsexuals, who live in the sex that feels like home.
Gender expression is also represented most accurately by a continuum. Those pink and blue birth caps in delivery rooms are knitted with inaccurate assumptions that girls will grow up to be feminine and boys to be masculine. Trying to talk about gender articulation using only the terms widely used in English today-feminine, masculine, androgynous-is as ludicrous as trying to make yourself understood in a language composed of 3 words....
If you want the full article, ask me. But...god. This is why I'm scared (among many reasons, sigh). I'm afraid that one of my many medical issues will get worse to a point where I need care, and that I'll be refused because I won't answer to ma'am.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2009-02-26 10:02 pm (UTC)The road will probably be hard for you, but I can assure you that you have people who are willing to stand by you. :) We'll be there when you need us.
no subject
on 2009-02-26 10:05 pm (UTC)Me too!
on 2009-02-27 02:08 pm (UTC)I woul dnot only like the full article, but the author's email address as well. We have much to talk about!
Re: Me too!
on 2009-02-28 12:02 am (UTC)Leslie Feinberg's contact info is here: http://www.transgenderwarrior.org/contact/contacthome.htm