Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Trans people need so much approval from cisgender people in order to medically transition it's demeaning. For example, I am a 35 year old adult on HRT for 10 years. I've been diagnosed multiple times with gender dysphoria. In 2015, I had top surgery..
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Six years later I need a BASIC revision (correction). I'll be awake during the procedure. It will literally take minutes to complete. I need the revision for both my mental health and physical discomfort/ability (i.e. I have very limited range if motion in my shoulders).
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Despite the plethora of letters I've had to receive from mental health and medical providers throughout the years, in order to be ALLOWED this revision & have it covered by insurance, I need a new evaluation, gender dysphoria diagnosis and approval.
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Despite my discomfort doing so, I have to re explain my experience with gender and discuss intimate details about my BODY with a new cisgender stranger who will decide if and when I am allowed the revision.
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey My willingness to comply and articulate details that are easily digestible by a cisgender stranger my ultimately decide my fate.
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Cis people are so disconnected from people who medically transition that they are debating if our medical care should be legal as if any trans person can stroll into a clinic and receive care (yes, trans health should be at least this accessible).
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey While, yes, access to trans care should be NO different than access to any other BASIC type of medical care, it isn't that way at all. We are debating the legality of trans care when our energy should be spent improving the unacceptable care we currently receive.
Jersey Noah @NoahJersey Gate keeping in medical care is when a medical provider controls and/or withholds medical treatment from a patient. #transhealthnow
Imagine that, having been diagnosed with a heart condition, or hypothyroidism, or asthma, or any number of other long term medical conditions, you had to get re-diagnosed every single time you went in for treatment. If every time you change doctors, you had to justify to that doctor that your previous diagnosis was accurate. If you had to prove that, yes, I am actually sick, even when you have been taking the medications for years.
That is the state of trans healthcare. Every every time you change prescribers, you have to prove to the doctor that, yes, I really am the gender I say I am and that’s why I’ve been on hormone therapy for five years. Every gender affirming surgery you pursue, even ones that don’t require pre-auth to do on cis people (such as breast augmentations/reductions), requires multiple new letters (they wont take the old ones) affirming that, yes, you are the gender you say you are and no you are not delusional or suffering from psychosis. This continues to be required no matter how long you have lived as your true self.
Even though I look like a woman, have been living as a woman for over three years, have been taking estrogen for nearly four years, and have no freaking testicles, I will yet again have to justify that I am actually transgender in order to pursue any future surgeries. Even trans people who have had bottom surgery still experience these hoops.
Yet conservative pundits and legislators would have you believe that we just walk into a clinic and they hand us a prescription, that a female assigned person can just dial up a surgeon and have their uterus removed (even cis women have to jump through hoops to make that happen).