Danielle Hunter Made To Sleep On Floor Of Mental Health Facility

A relative of mine spent a number of years as a patient in a mental hospital.  I have known other people who have spent time in various hospitals and institutions.  From their experiences, I have come to the conclusion that here in the US, we take better care of animals we slaughter than of mental-health patients.

It seems that when you go for mental health care, you surrender all of your rights--including your right to saftety, let alone the right to be who you are.  At least, the case of Danielle Hunter could tell us as much.

She is a transgender performer who was admitted to Lakeside Behavior Healthcare in Orlando, FL on 24 March after attempting suicide and, while recuperating in a hospital, saying that she would try again.  The following night, she was removed from her bed and made to sleep on the floor in front of the nurse's station.  

When she asked why she was treated that way, a nurse told her, "If you would like to sleep in a bed, you can sleep in with the men."

What's even more galling about this is that Ms. Hunter has a Florida ID that lists her as female.  

Fortunately for her, she is well-known in the Orlando area--and, apparently, beyond--and therefore has some people with "juice" advocating on her behalf.  That begs the question of what would happen to her if she were some anonymous street kid--or, for that matter, me.

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:

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.

Disinformation In The Service Of Hate

One of the easiest ways to make an inaccurate case against--or simply to slander someone or something--is to use outmoded or discredited information that many people don't know (or don't want to know) is outmoded or discredited.

That is essentially what pyschiatrist Paul McHugh did last month in a Wall Street Journal editorial.  He characterized trangenderism as a "disorder", something the DSM no longer does.  He also cited the studies showing poor outcomes for people who underwent gender-reassignment surgery.  Those studies led to the closure of the Johns Hopkins program in 1979.  But surgeries as well as psychotherapy and other treatments for transgenders have improved greatly since then.  With those developments have come greater understanding among the general public about what transgender people are.  (Whenever I remember that, I am grateful I transitioned in my 40's and my early 50's rather than in my 20's!).   

Fortunately, Dan Karasic got wind of it and responded as only he could.  Dr. Karasic is conversant with the most recent studies of, and treatments for, transgenders.  That's no surprise, really:  He's on the Board of Directors for the World Professional Association of Transgender Health.   More to the point, he approaches transgenderism as a scientist and health professional and does not let ideology or warped religious ideas cloud his thinking.

He notes that since 1989, the mortality rate for trans people is not significantly different from that of the general population.  Moreover, the "regret rate" of those who had surgery between 2001 and 2010 (which includes yours truly) is only 0.3 percent.   Can you think of any other human endeavor with such a low percentage of people who regret doing it?  (Before I began this post, I talked to two women who told me that if they "could do it all over again," they wouldn't get married.)

Anyway, as we start to gain our rights and greater acceptance from society, there will be folks like McHugh who will try to use outmoded studies and stereotypes to cast us in a negative light.  Fortunately, if we keep ourselves informed, it won't be hard to debunk their hokum.

What We Experience

For a decade, I've been getting my healthcare and referrals from the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.  At times, they can be maddeningly disorganized.  But every health care provider and other staff member I've encountered there has made great efforts to be helpful.   Plus, Richie Tran is the kind of doctor I always wished I could find before my transition.  Well, maybe such doctors were out there, but I wasn't ready to talk to any of them, even if they could have heard what I wanted to say.

It seems that Callen Lorde's equivalent in Boston is Fenway Health.  They do a lot of outreach--at least, every time I do a web search for anything related to LGBT health care, I come across something or another they've posted.  And it's all been useful.

They really seem to like infographics.  That's probably a good thing:  Not everyone likes to read, or has the patience to do so, I guess.  Fenway's stuff is eye-catching, and often appealing.  If nothing else, they get their point across, as they do in this one:

If you can enlarge the infographic, look at the row of statistics to the left of the US map:  Discrimination In Public Accomodations.  Thirty-seven percent of us report having been harassed or disrespected in retail stores; three percent of us have been assaulted.  For hotels and restaurants, those statistics are very similar:  35 and 2 percent.  

I am one of the 29 percent of trans people who's been harassed or disrepected by the police, and the 29 percent who've had such experiences in health care settings.  Fortunately for me, I haven't been assaulted by police officers or in health care settings, though two and six percent, respectively, of trans people have had such experiences.

And other trans people have had it worse.  Much worse. 

"Passing" Does Not Mean "Equal"

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, previous generations of transsexuals tried to go "stealth" as much as they could.  That meant, not only looking and acting as if they were members of their "new" genders, but also erasing their pasts, often to the point of creating wholly fictitious histories (Is that an oxymoron?) for themselves.

I've pointed out some of the fallacies and pitfalls of doing so.  For one thing, amnesia is not healthy; self-imposed amnesia can only be worse.  Also, as Victoria Brownworth says, a person who "passes" is trapped:  He or she believes the lie or is caught in it.  Yet, as long as we're not caught, society will reward, and even demand, such fabrications.

We see one of the major problems in "going stealth" or "passing" when we look at the law.  I used to believe that if I were to "pass" well enough, I would never have to worry about transgender equality:  If I had to throw my (all-too-considerable) weight behind a movement, it would be feminism.

Well, I still tell anyone who knows about my history that there's nothing like becoming a woman to turn you into a feminist.   While I may not have to worry about daycare (unless, of course, I adopt), I still have to think about other women's workplace and lifestyle issues because they affect me.  

One of those issues is discrimination. While a prospective employer may know nothing of my history from seeing me, and nothing of my experience of life from my resume and cover letter, he or she could always find out about those things without searching very long.  Even if I never wrote this blog, or any of my articles or essays about transitioning or living as a woman, a prospective employer could do a simple background check.

So, for that matter, could a health insurer, or any health-care provider.  Or prospective landlord or lender.  Even trans people whom other people simply cannot imagine in their birth genders run into discrimination and other difficulties as a result of having had to live their previous lives.

Those are reasons why I now realize that I simply cannot ignore the issue of LGBT rights, or think that including protections for transgenders in civil rights laws is not as important as some other issues.  Simply distancing myself from my old life will not insulate me from it.  I made my transition and had my surgery so I could live as the woman I am, but there is no point in denying that some of my experiences are different from those of other women.  More to the point, my body has a different history from those of other women:  Even if I am no longer at risk for, say, prostate cancer, I may still need treatment for some residual condition.  (Trans men encounter this when they need screening for cervical or breast cancer.)  On top of that--as I learned early in my transition--there are some medical care providers who won't treat you, give you inappropriate treatments or will harass and humiliate you because of who you are.

Those are just some of the reasons why, no matter how good we are at "passing" and how little semblance our current lives bear to our former ones, we still need to work for equality, whether it's by getting language added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act or our employers to adopt fair and equitable policies.  As someone who's spent more than her share of time in classrooms, I can tell you that simply passing doesn't mean that you're equal to anyone else.  At least, you haven't gotten there yet.

What The DSM-V Won't, And Can't, Address

Yesterday I discussed, briefly, the possible implications and effects of removing "transgender" from the list of mental disorders for the upcoming DSM-V.

As I mentioned, this de-classification of us as mentally ill may not turn out to be an entirely good thing unless other changes are made.  In the post, I talked about the fact that some medical and psychiatric care is available to us on the premise that our identity is a "disorder". The good news is that while changing such a circumstance won't be easy, it can at least be done through a few very specific actions, such as changing some health care, governmental and insurance policies.

On the other hand, there's another problem that will take longer and could prove even more difficult:  changing the attitudes of some health professionals and others on whom we depend.  While efforts to educate them about homosexuality have eliminated or lessened at least some of the homophobia found among such professionals, there is still some bigotry against non-heterosexual people.  And, where there's homophobia, there's usually even more transphobia.

Fortuanately for me, I have not experienced transphobia from health care professionals since the time, early in my transition, a group of nurses at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary mocked me when I came in for an appointment.  I was ready to walk out and file a complaint when the doctor with whom I had the appointment walked in, apologized for the nurses' behavior and treated me with courtesy and respect.  While that incident turned out well and I have not had difficulty with health care professionals since then, many other trans people are not so fortunate.

As an example, a trans man I know told me about an LGBT health fair he attended.  One of the presenters was a doctor with a large number of transgender patients.  In fact, he was my first doctor when I started my transition.  According to this friend--and others who attended that fair--this doctor disparagingly compared trans people to Michael Jackson and even said, in essence, that there's not much that can be done to help trans people; all anyone can do is to medicate them.

Now, if a doctor with transgender patients can make such comments, you can only imagine how much transphobia still exists, even if it's less openly expressed.  It can be mitigated, of course, through education:  Some aspiring doctors are learning about trans issues as part of their training.  Others are doing residencies or internships with clinics and other institutions that serve large numbers of LGBT people.  And, of course, some experienced doctors and nurses are open to change, or weren't bigoted to begin with.  But while I am confident that others  can and will change, de-classifying us in the DSM-V won't be enough.