Hi NYC Nurse,
I've only just joined yesterday so my comment is coming a little late. I live in Australia and I do anything I can to conceal my trans identity from any but my most trusted medical providers due to a history of mistreatment. As background, I'm 51 years old and I look cis so I usually don't have any trouble.
The harassment that I have experienced from medical practitioners has ranged from malicious misgendering, deadnaming through to open abuse. The worst was when I broke my toe. I went to my doctor (GP - super trans friendly) and received excellent care. He referred me to the hospital emergency department and Iwas receiving medical care there when the emergency doctor requested an xray to confirm that it was indeed a break. While being xrayed the radiographer noted gender based inconsistencies in my records and asked me about them. I was not as on guard as usual since I had already been given some pain releif by my GP (the green whistle) and just replied that I was trans and that the documentation needed to be updated as all my documents were accurate to my new gender and name.
About 15 mins later it was confirmed that I had a break and the emergency doctor prescribed pain relief which was to be administered by two nurses. The nurses approached me (and my partner of 22 years) and spoke loudly to each other asking if 'that was it?' pointing to me and then they went on to taunt me about being trans while withholding the pain meds. My partner had to argue with them to get them to release the meds to me and then they wouldn't give them to me but gave them to my partner because they 'didn't want to touch it' (me). We left as soon as we could and then a few days later lodged a complaint which the hospital said they couldn't follow up because I didn't give names. I think they could have looked up the rosters and the lists they keep of who administed what medicines to whom.
Another time, earlier in my transition, one of my children was persistently bed wetting. This later turned out to be connected with her autism undiagnosed at the time. When my partner took her to the doctor he said that 'he was not surpised because he had met the father' (me) and told my partner to leave me for the benefit of the children. What he said was morally wrong and medically incorrect. It had nothing to do with my parenting.
I could go on and on but that's the flavour of it.
I now have an excellent psychiatris, endocrinologist and an amazing GP. The first time I went to my GP I had to disclose to receive the care I needed. When I did that in past, even if the doctor was not discriminatory, I ended up informing them about my medical care and needs. My GP just said he didn't know, rescheduled the appointment for a weeks time, didn't charge me and when I returned he was a walking encyclopeadia on trans health (Omfg! I hit the jackpot!). He's been fantastic ever since. He told me that if I was anywhere away from him (interstate) and needed scripts etc then he would do a phone consult for me and issue the scripts electronically so that I would have to go through my story with another GP.
During COVID I was terrified of, not dying, but being isolated from my partner's protection away from my family and at the mercy of medical staff due to being COVID positive. They would find out that I am pre-op (I'm going to organise to have surgery over the next year) and I am confident that they would torment me. I'm going to have surgery soon for me, because I need to and a welcome side effect will be that I'll be able to protect myself in a situation like that.
In summary, with my trusted, established medical care I do super well and I'm very lucky. Outside of that I see most medical practitioners as a threat until proven otherwise.
kind regards
OzChick
