Breaking News

These are the 20 best travel destinations for summer 2024, according to Google Flight Searches 3 Google Maps updates to make summer travel easier SPACECENT is up the new war zone > United States Space Force > Article Display Tuberculosis — United States, 2023 | MMWR Thousands of US bridges are vulnerable to collapse from a single hit: NTSB Why don’t the Blazers or ROOT Sports offer standalone streaming? Up to 200,000 people estimated to travel to Vermont for total solar eclipse How fast will April’s total solar eclipse travel? The UN Security Council demands a ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan Mexico in the emerging world order

It was a tough Pride month. Instead of being a month to celebrate, it was a month in defense. This is nothing new. In 1969, Pride began with a riot. It continues to be a time when LGBTQ + people have to fight for their right to exist and for their right to primary health care. This year, we have seen an unprecedented increase in state legislatures condemning, and even committing crimes, gender-affirming treatment, which is simply good health care.

Gender affirmation assistance is about listening to patients’ needs, providing clinical options and expertise. Removes judgment and barriers to accessing qualified medical service providers. While much of the dialogue has focused on GnRH agonists (puberty blockers), hormones, or surgery, gender affirming assistance is so much more. Gender-affirming care provides a framework for better health care for all in a country whose overall health system is in dire need of improvement.

In 2020, we at Transhealth Northampton have chosen to provide comprehensive primary care and mental health care to people of all ages. We do this because trans people, like all people, have daily health needs that change throughout their lives. We know this because we are trans-driven and have lived these experiences in the absence of primary care. We provide support and commitment to the community because we know that social support is one of the biggest ways to reduce suicide attempt rates, due to the way society has chosen to stigmatize and discriminate against us. In many ways, national debates on access to gender affirmation care feel completely separate from what we experience with patients in our clinic.

A weekly newsletter from the Boston Globe Ideas section, forged at the intersection of “what if” and “why not”.

Medicine continues to harm and fail trans people. Puberty blockers and hormones have been used to treat cisgender populations for decades, but for purely political reasons, trans people are now required to demonstrate their needs. Throughout the history of medicine, trans people have had to constantly prove their identity. Medical and governmental institutions have often re-entered their jurisdiction to determine someone’s identity. This form of treatment results in a dehumanization of trans people at every step and can lead to severe medical abuse. In contrast, gender affirmation assistance refocuses the individual’s authority to understand and represent their identity and corresponding health needs.

Many of these politicized approaches are rooted in the false notion that trans young people are something new. We know from anthropological data that gender diversity has been a part of human experience since at least the Neolithic period. Some argue that there are large numbers of young people in transition without clinical guidance. This is false and unsupported by any data. These claims attempt to lend legitimacy to the harmful idea that it is okay to prevent trans people from being trans before helping them.

There is no debate about access to diabetes care or any other form of life-saving care, so why focus on other forms of healthcare? Just like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or back pain don’t require specialized clinics, not even gender affirming treatments. It should simply be the standard of care provided by each clinic, to affirm every individual who walks through the doors of the clinic. Gender affirmation treatments have been shown to be lifesaving treatments.

Only a small but tyrannical minority opposes it. The vast majority of providers support the provision of gender-affirming care, and the vast majority of young Americans support trans rights.

Some may feel that gender-affirming care is too affordable, but studies show that barriers are rampant for young people and adults in states where care is still legal. The problem is not a divided clinical community or excessive access, but rather the political framing of a private health issue.

Some media outlets frame gender affirmation assistance as a debate. It is not. Instead, news outlets should hire trans journalists, consult the Trans Journalists Association (including its style guide), and primarily interview and center stories about people from the trans community. When this is not done, the media disappoint our community, framing it as a culture war rather than the way it is: a continual attempt to make things more difficult or prevent trans people from existing. This has the very real effect of encouraging anti-LGBTQ + violence that we saw last month.

Society must stop treating gender-affirming care as something special. It is a global cure that affirms the individual and meets him where he is. This is something everyone within healthcare should be able to provide: basic clinical expertise.

Classifying gender-affirming care as specialist care treats them as a talking point in a culture war. In reality, gender affirmation care is quality health care that does not discriminate against transgender and gender-diverse people. Who could oppose this?

Dallas Ducar is managing director of Transhealth Northampton. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @DallasDucar.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *