Transgender Rights

A Rebuttal of the Deeply-Flawed Cass Report

Why Trans Healthcare Must Be Governed by Transgender People

Nothing About Us Without Us

Transgender healthcare, like all care for marginalized communities, should be governed by the very people it serves. The phrase “nothing about us without us,” originating in Native American activism against white colonial reporting, has direct relevance today in the context of transgender healthcare.

We all know the senseless harm done by biased, privileged researchers and practitioners have done to indigenous people, to Black women, to autistic folk and to other marginalized communities. From the fallacy that “Black women don’t experience pain,” which led to such monstrous practices as surgeries without anesthesia, to the deeply backward attitudes toward anatomical studies of the female body — resulting in such shameful gaps in medical research as the fact that the mapping of the clitoris by Helen O’Connell only happened a mere two decades ago in 2005.

When healthcare decisions for trans people are dominated by cisgender voices, it perpetuates harm, misunderstanding, and a lack of empathy for the lived experiences of transgender individuals. Cisgender perspectives, no matter how well-meaning…