Being cismale I had never thought about the issues involved. However seeing both word in the title of an article made my brain go “Oh, there are going to be issue both medical and getting treatment.” Yes I know all of you with a uterus probably already knew or realized this long ago.
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Yeah, it’s hard enough getting diagnosis and treatment if you’re a woman.
As man… phew. I don’t even want to think of that fight. He’s either going to be constantly misgendered, dimissed, or both.
These kinds of biases are ones that cis people need to put our efforts into fighting, too. When we think of “trans health care”, we think of stuff specifically related to transitioning, whereas the reality is that getting even regular healthcare can be hard.
Like… we know in cis people that heart attack presents differently between men and women. We’ve made some progress in awareness of that – less women arr dismissed nowadays for having “female” heart attack symptoms (more than should be, but less). But what if a man shows up in the ER and complains of those symptoms? Do they give him an EKG, or send him home? If they do give him an EKG, do they treat the heart attack, or try to determine instead why he has the wrong symptoms, possibly outing him over a condition that has nothing to do with his being trans? (I am using a man for this, because a woman presenting with “classic” symptoms is more likely to be treated immediately).
We can’t leave it to trans people to fight these fights alone. Medicine has a huge cis-male bias, and even when it does include women, it’s still a huge cis bias. It needs to change. And not solely for the fact that better healthcare for everyone means better healthcare for those who already have it fairly good. But if that’ll motivate people, why the hell not?
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Fuck. It is hard enough to get a diagnosis of endometriosis as a women. It took 20 years and an operation on a cyst the size of an apple for a doctor to finally say I have it. Then it took another 7 years to find a combination of treatments that made it bearable 90% of the time. I still can’t find anyone to treat the secondary effects such as my digestive issues - the moment I mention I have endometriosis no gasteroentologist wants to touch me, and it doesn’t help that before I got the endometriosis diagnosis I was labeled with IBS.
My point is that endo sucks hard enough presenting as female it would be abominable to be trans and having to deal with everyone’s preconceptions before even confronting the endo problems. I get the mildest taste of that problem just by having a traditionally male name. I just get the doubletake, I don’t have have to break though the confusion of a male looking person with a female problem.
I like the endo warriors over the endo sisters. Not only is it more inclusive it recognizes the struggle of people with the disease.
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I do have some sympathy for my OB-GYN colleagues on this issue, since theirs is by design and training a very gendered specialty, and learning a new language and way of interacting with patients is always uncomfortable, especially for those who have been in practice for a long time. I have struggled with these issues and still screw it up at times. That said, learning new things and adjusting standard practices is, in fact, part and parcel of the profession and if one is not willing to do so, then medicine is not the field for you. I have not personally heard about OB-GYNs here having issues with trans patients, but have struggled mightily to find Family Practice docs to transition my 20-something trans patients who should not be seeing a pediatrician anymore to! We do, at least , have access to UVA, even if an hour away, where those resources are available pretty easily.
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