There’s No Think Like Overthink

Leaving the inadequacy of the 'privilege' framework aside

Folks

Folx

We're all lying to our doctors

The foundational work of transfeminism, Sandy Stone's Empire Strikes Back, talks extensively about the proud history of trans women swapping answer sheets and tips from the Harry Benjamin guidelines

Folx doctors hate us and don't want us to have care and trying to extract anything more than The Turing Treatment from them is like pulling teeth

Folx a lot of us aren't getting our HRT from doctors because they wouldn't give it to us

The psychiatrist I was seeing to get my HRT process rolling completely changed his tone and approach to me when I had the audacity to wear pants and a blouse to our appointment instead of a dress. Still wearing heels, and makeup, and elaborate jewelry. But I wear pants and suddenly he's reconsidering if I have gender dysphoria and if maybe something else is going on, and so my access to HRT was delayed because he wanted more appointments. He delayed signing supporting documents for changing my government IDs because "I hadn't transitioned enough yet". I lied to this man 24/7 during the entire process btw, because trans women have been swapping info about lying to doctors across the globe and for decades, and this shit STILL happened.

Whenever a medical professional now finds out I'm a trans woman, the conversation immediately veers into asking about risky sexual behaviour and drug use, followed by mental illnesses. I do NOT get asked these questions or approached with that tone if they think I'm a respectable cis white lady.

We can't actually trust cis doctors to treat us with respect or grace, and so we can't be honest with them.

Source: