Transphobia Is Hazardous To Our Health

When some people are bulied, harassed or otherwise intimidated, they become more determined to fight, to move toward their goals, to do whatever they need to take care of themselves.  And they might even be motivated to help others in situations like their own.

Still others take out their anger on the world.  If you get close to such people, you are likely to bear the brunt of their rage. I know:  I was in intimate relationships with two such people.

Then there are those who retreat and withdraw.  I've seen trans people who go from their homes to their cars and back--never venturing even into the immediate environs of their homes and neighborhoods, let alone the larger world.  Some of them even forego health care and other services they need because they feel so beaten down by the prejudice they experience.

That last category of hated-upon folks (transgenders, specifically) is the subject of this infographic from Fenway Health:

Buried In The Wrong Gender

Ask any transgender person what his or her greatest fears are in this life, and you will probably hear about being slandered, harrassed, beaten, fired or evicted--and of losing longtime relationships with family members, friends and colleagues-- simply for being who he or she is.  

I have experienced all of those things.  So have many other trans people.  I am fortunate in that I am alive to tell about them.

Which leads me to another great fear many trans people have:  What will be done with, or to, us in death.  Even if we have been stripped of all of your dignity when we are alive, we can be deprived of whatever is accorded to other people in death.  At least, that is what can happen in most states if we change our names, take hormones and live and work in the gender of our mind and spirits but, for whatever reasons, don't undergo the surgery that makes us members of that gender in the eyes of most people and the law of most places.

That is what happened to Idaho trans woman Jennifer Gable.  Last month, she suddenly died from an aneurysm.  That was shocking enough to those who loved her, but what happened next was even more stunning:  In her open casket, she was presented with short hair and in a suit, as a man. 

Her paid obituary gave her name as Geoffrey Charles Gable and mentioned the details of her birth, baptism, membership in a church, marriage (which ended in divorce) and work for Wells Fargo Bank.  There was not a word about the way, or the name under which, she lived the last few years of her life.  

As appalled as I am, I am not surprised:  Idaho is still one of four US states (Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee are the others) that will not change the gender on a person's birth certificate even if he or she has gender reassignment surgery.  Knowing that, I suppose it's a victory of sorts that her death certificate lists her as "Geoffrey AKA Jennifer Gable". 

A Frontier Of Transphobia In Healthcare

On the whole, I've been a bit more fortunate than other trans people in my experiences with health care providers.  I was able to find a doctor who treated many trans patients and he referred me, as needed, to others who were affirming or who, at least, cared enough only to use the right pronouns.

Still, in the early part of my transition, I had an encounter with some nasty, transphobic nurses at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, to which my ophthalmologist sent me.  The nurses laughed, used every derogatory term ever invented and made rude gestures.  The receptionist witnessed everything; I told her I was leaving; she summoned the doctor who talked to me in a reassuring way and promised that if I ever went there again, neither those nurses nor anyone else would treat me that way again.


A decade has passed since that incident.  Still, I think about it from time to time, especially when I hear or read about mistreatment to other trans people.  Even so, I simply can't imagine what a small but very visible group of trans people experiences.  I'm talking about pregnant trans men.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure of how I'd react upon seeing a pregnant man. I don't think I'd make rude comments or be mean in any other way.  Still, I'm not sure I could stop myself from staring.

Knowing that, I can only imagine how it must be for them to go out in public every day, let alone deal with health care providers.  Most, I'm sure, would treat them as best they knew how.  But if some health care providers can be as mean and rude as the nurses I encountered at NY Eye and Ear, I can only imagine what it's like for those pregnant trans men.

Ira Steven Beatty Knows What We Need

Perhaps I don't pay enough attention to celebrities.  I hadn't heard much less about Warren Beatty or Annette Bening in a while.  So it wouldn't surprise you to know that I didn't know about their son Ira Steven, ne Kathlyn.

I only learned about the Beatty/Bening boy because of a new public-service announcement in which he appears.



In that video, he opposes a New York State Medicaid regulation that keeps trans people from accessing the health care they need.

The last six words of the previous sentence, by the way, are not mine:  They are in a New York Daily News article.  While not as Neanderthal as the Post, the Daily News has never been known as a progressive voice.  So I was a bit surprised to find such language in one of their articles.  Maybe the folks there are "getting it".

Other people will, too, if publications like the Daily News continue to report such facts and folks like Ira Stephen Beatty make PSAs.  I think even more people will realize that trangender health care needs are as legitimate as any other health care need when folks like his famous parents speak up on the issue, which they haven't done yet.