Shades Of Peeing In Peace…

…But for healthcare; sadly when we dial 911 we worry what will happen to us; will we get the best healthcare or will the providers walk away saying it is against their religious beliefs?

New Directory of Trans-Friendly Medical and Legal Services Fills Critical Need for Trans Southerners
Campaign for Southern Equality
By Adam Polaski
January 9, 2019

Today the Campaign for Southern Equality released an updated and expanded version of Trans in the South: A Guide to Resources and Services to help transgender Southerners access the medical and legal services they need. The new edition of Trans in the South features an independently-vetted directory of more than 400 trans-friendly service providers – including primary care doctors, attorneys, counselors, endocrinologists, and more – across 13 Southern states. The guide is available in English and Spanish at www.southernequality.org/TransIntheSouth

According to 2016 data published by the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, approximately 500,000 trans people live in the South. But many transgender Southerners report experiencing barriers to accessing basic services and a lack of respect, dignity, and understanding in medical settings. Nationally, data suggests that approximately 25 percent of transgender people do not seek health care at all because of a fear of discrimination.

Ivy Gibson-Hill, Community Health Program Director at the Campaign for Southern Equality, said today:

We know that trans folks face disparities in nearly every sphere of life, but in health care particularly. Finding a doctor or attorney who will treat you with dignity and respect can be a really overwhelming task as a Southern trans person. The Trans in the South guide is a joint effort by trans leaders across the South to increase our community’s access to competent care and make it easier to find friendly providers and resources.

This reminds me of a pamphlet that was being circulated for safe places to pee and also the Green Book in the fifties that listed safe places for blacks to stay.

The booklet begins with…

Trans in the South is dedicated to the grassroots warriors who are working to get resources to their friends, family, and community members. To the ones who are building their networks of support from the ground up.

This book is for the folks who thought transition would never be an option for them. For the ones who have been told they aren’t trans enough. For the rural Southern trans kids who feel like they are alone in this world.

This book is for all the trans and gender expansive Southerners who insist on continuing to breathe day after day. The ones who are bold enough to embrace self definition in a world that was not built for us to thrive.

Trans in the South is dedicated to every trans Southerner who persists in growing in this rocky clay soil. We face unique challenges that other folks may never understand, but may we never forget the beauty, strength, and resiliency that lives in each one of us. You are not alone.

It is sad that we need something like this, I volunteer at the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective and they maintain a list of LGBT friendly healthcare providers*. Just yesterday I had a call from a therapist looking for a trans friendly healthcare provider.

I have two warnings:

• Over time a trans friendly place may become a very unfriendly place.
• Or that another patient might take exception to us.

The support group used to maintain a list of trans friendly spaces, well one time I got an email from a very angry trans person it seems that a “gay bar” that we listed changed ownership and now was a country western bar and was a very unfriendly space. So they have their work cut out for them in keeping it up to date.

*Now a days we see more than just doctors, many times it is a APRN or a PA we see and also there are nurses and medical technicians that we interface with when we seek health care so I use the words healthcare providers.