subitis medicinae

I don’t know how to tell you about the things that haunt me, the things my heart finds too heavy to carry around from day to day. I’m afraid that if I pick these things up to share them with you that they’ll be too heavy for you too, and we’ll both suffocate under the weight. So instead I leave them dotted around the floor like my own personal minefield, an obstacle course that I have to traverse day in and day out, hoping to not trigger one. I don’t know how to go through the minefield with you behind me because I don’t want to lose you to it.

I don’t know how to do this with you. I’ve never had someone who cares so deeply about me, someone who puts so much effort into wanting to understand me. I don’t know how to let you support me, how to give myself over to you. I don’t know how to do this not on my own. 

But I don’t know how to do this without you. When you’re not actively in my life I feel lost, like I’m searching for something, but I don’t know what that something is. My heart cries in your absence, like a puppy whining for the warmth of its mother just after being separated. I don’t want to do this without you next to me. I don’t want to do this without your hand in mine, but I’m still figuring out how to reach out for you.

I imagine in the dead of night when I roll around the empty space in my bed it’s my heart trying to find yours; it’s my heart trying to find our true connection. I want to have you by my side for the rest of my life, but I’m still learning how to lean on other people when it matters the most. I know I push you away, even though I don’t want to. I would rather walk with you hand in hand, but with no flak jackets to protect us from the land mines, I regretfully leave you behind at the edge of the minefield, leaving you to watch me traverse it on my own, and hopefully survive, instead of letting you figure it out with me. 

Transness has long been treated as a medical conditions to be solved through either conversion therapy or physical transition (HRT, surgery). While the effects of physical transition may bring joy  to many trans people, the medicalization, transphobia, and expense that comes with dealing with the U.S. healthcare system is rampant.

So many trans people, especially QTPOC, have difficulties when dealing with healthcare workers (data from NCTE). Of trans people in the U.S.:

25% have experienced trans-related insurance problems in the past year.

23% have avoided seeking medical attention, even if needed, due to fear of transphobic mistreatment (29% of QTPOC).

Of those who sought HRT insurance coverage, 25% were denied.

Of those who sought affirmation surgery coverage, 55% were denied.

The medicalization of trans people is often justified (both outside and within the community) as a way to ensure that trans-related healthcare and procedures are covered by insurance. But why should corporatized for-profit healthcare dictate the way we treat and describe trans people? Why should people need major financial help to afford feeling comfortable in their bodies?

While 11% of Americans are uninsured, that number goes up to 14% for the trans community, and 16% for QTPOC. It’s almost like an industry based on racial capitalist assumptions of profit over people doesn’t care about leaving marginalized communities behind.

Transness is not a disease, a disorder, or something to be “cured.” Trans people are not science experiments, and are not obligated to share their entire medical history with you because you’re curious. We are people; we deserve caring health care.

Transphobia in the US (and global) healthcare system is systemic; it’s built-in. Individual healthcare providers cannot undo institutional transphobia, but they can affirm their trans patients and make their workplace culture more inclusive.

Ask for all of your patients’ chosen name (regardless of legal name) and pronouns (regardless of assigned gender & gender identity) – then use them

Address all your patients in gender neutral terms before you know their pronouns

Understand the social construction of sex and gender. Avoid essentializing language

Trust that your trans patients understand their transness, their transition wants, and their trans-related needs

Understand that you do not get to define what a “real trans person” wants or does, or who is “trans enough.” There is no single “right way” to be trans, and you don’t get to decide that your trans patient is doing it “wrong.”

**DISCLAIMER: Just because you implement these practices doesn’t mean you or your workplace are trans-affirming. Just because you and your workplace are trans-affirming doesn’t mean you are done doing the work.**

[ID 1: Blue background with the TEP and TWOA logos in the upper corners. Blue text reads “Transphobia in Healthcare in the U.S.” Blue and white text describes the statistics of transphobia in the healthcare system. A white outline of a cartoon hospital and ambulance are in the bottom right corner, above a pink rectangle with white text reading “source: NCTE.”]

I’m not salty anymore, I just want people to be aware, and I want people to no longer be hurt.

When I got really mad or sad I used to line up my dice collection by size and color like this.

It takes alot of frustation and patience to choose what goes next in line and why.

-Caroline Ouellette and Julie Chu (both former captains)

-Gillian Apps (former alternate captain) and Meghan Duggan (former captain)

-Jayna Hefford (former alternate captain) and Kathleen Kauth

So two religios leaders in the town, Thomas Stanley and William Mompesson, got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.

They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.

However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.

- Acknowledge that Christmas is not a universal holiday and that some people either feel negatively about it or just don’t celebrate it. Stop being offended by this.

- Stop forcing people to participate. Don’t make your Jewish employees wear Christmas outfits, don’t make schoolkids be part of Christmas plays, etc.

- Stop pushing back when Jews are honest with you about how they feel about it.

- Stop deflecting to talk about how Christmas traditions are actually pagan in origin. We know, and also it’s fully irrelevant to our issues with Christmas.

- Recognize things from other cultures. Or at very least don’t *prevent* members of other cultures from expressing them. If your employee wants to put up a menorah, let them. If your coworker wants to add a Chanukah decoration to your office don’t take it down when they’re not looking because it “messes up the Christmas spirit” or whatever.

- Recognize things from different cultures at other times of the year too. Let your Jewish students and employees take days off for the fall holidays. Maybe even consider merchandise or decorations for those holidays too!

- Stop with the double standards. You don’t get to say that a menorah is religious and a Christmas tree isn’t. Either both of them are or neither of them are. A menorah actually is a ritual object but a) plenty of secular Jews use them and b) I don’t think most Christians know that, they just think of Judaism (and therefore Jewish culture) as “a religion” and Christian culture as normal. When people claim to object to Chanukah (the holiday most widely — and often exclusively — celebrated by secular Jews) because it’s “religious,” they’re actually objecting because it’s non-normative.

- Listen when someone is telling you about their experiences with and thoughts about hegemonic culture. Don’t argue that actually it’s fine becaude Christmas is secular or pagan or whatever. Trust people about the experiences they’ve had and how things impact them.