The Texas Healthcare System Has Failed the Trans Community
Being transgender anywhere is hard. Being transgender in Texas? You might as well be on the Moon because it is a long and lonely road of judgment and ridicule, littered with closed minds and the clueless.
Devastating Lock-down for Being Transgender
When we think healthcare in Texas, most of us think about Medicare and Medicaid, equality for all. When I think Texas healthcare, I see judgment, excuses, and bigotry. The healthcare system, when it comes to being trans, is full of close-minded individuals.
An example of this:
When I was fifteen years old, I was institutionalized in a mental hospital for one of many suicide attempts. Instead of having me in with the general population of adolescents my age, because I was transgender they put me in “D-Pod,” known as the lock-down pod. When I asked why I was on lock-down, a middle-aged lady said that they didn’t want me “influencing the other girls.”
At fifteen, this was devastating, especially since I had just tried to commit suicide. This didn’t just happen on one occasion, but every subsequent time they hospitalized me, I was told the same thing. They treated my gender identity was like Ebola, trying to stamp it out with “prayers” and isolation.
Bigotry and Stupidity in Texas Psychiatry
I am a client with Helen Farabee. I’ve requested to speak to case-workers and my current psychiatrist on taking part in gender therapy but have gotten only excuses and “are you sure it’s not a phase?”
Thus I have pursued my search online and found out the hard way; when it comes to gender counseling, forget it.
The closest gender counselor is over an hour-and-a-half away from me. These so-called “gender counselors” are no more trained in transgender-related issues than a regular mental health counselor. Not only that, but there is a waiting list for even a simple consultation.
Clueless Healthcare Professionals
This isn’t only restricted to the mental health field. I have been seeing my primary physician for a year after moving to the group home where I reside and had comparable experiences. My primary physician is wonderful, but she hasn’t the slightest suggestion about whom to refer me to for HRT.
My original primary, before I switched, said that the endocrinologist he had checked into “didn’t do that kind of therapy.” What kind of therapy does that endocrinologist do then?
My Only Option and Possible Solution
My only options right now are to either go all the way to Plano, a three-hour ride, to Planned Parenthood for HRT or look out of state.
What frightens me is I know I am not the only Texan facing the insurmountable challenge of the Texas healthcare system. The Texas healthcare system, both mental and physical, has failed the entire Texas transgender people and I believe we should address this at Austin.
Until we call for a change, there will never be a change, and Texas healthcare will continue to bully, degrade, and use excuses in order to not deal with trans health issues directly. I will continue to search for an endocrinologist, and continue with my transition regardless of what limitations they have imposed on me, and I hope I can encourage you to do the same if you are going through something similar.
