I Stand With The Girls

I was born with a couple genetic conditions dreamt up by nature, chromosomes, and the mythical Fates who decided on and consigned me to be the person I became. One of these made it difficult to navigate the world and to this day puts me at greater health risk than most of you. This anomaly got me shunned and punished when I was little.

In third grade, Sister Mary-Spawn O’Hell (not her real name; it was even weirder than that) wrapped my knuckles until they bled and sometimes stood me in the corner, hoping that would cure me. One of my genetic conditions is called ‘sinistrality.’ In common terms, it means I’m left-handed. Statistics say that I am in greater risk of mortality than otherwise because of this condition, but my medical practitioners have never denied me treatment because of it.

I said I have multiple conditions. So just as an ‘oh by the way,’ I’m transgender. That too caused problems. When Sister Mary-Spawn told us to line up, ‘girls on one side, boys on the other,’ I suspect you already know who I lined up with. Although in that case, it didn’t get me stood in the corner. I now suspect that Sister perhaps had a grudging respect for my courage and self-knowledge. For all I know, she may have been an early ally.

All of which is preamble to allow me the opportunity to ‘line up with the girls’ once again and share with you something you may not already be aware of, which is that, in common with other trans folks, I strongly support health policies in our country that put the health and wellbeing of 100% of our people first and foremost; especially the 52% of the population I line up with.

As I said, I am fortunate in a way because neither of my conditions require my medical practitioners to violate their Hippocratic oath; or to force them to read me some screed prepared by a political entity; or force me to wait a mandatory three days before treatment can begin; or deny me treatment altogether because some people don’t think I should have a role in deciding on the treatment of either of my conditions. My health insurance (Medicare in my case) covers many of the medicines and therapies I need, regardless of any of my deviations from the norm, although I am well aware that treatment for many people with my condition is under attack and may well disappear or be outlawed.

I know that in some places, political debate has focused solely on the legal and political dimensions of a condition far more serious than mine however, one which has the potential to cause untold anguish for some of my fellow citizens, while completely ignoring the physiological and psychological aspects of that condition. Making life altering decisions about people with this condition is one in which no political body without serious medical qualifications just for starters, ought to have a serious role in deciding. Consider this recent Wired discussion regarding the condition:

So, yes, let’s take the wraps off the ‘condition’ and say the quiet part aloud. We’re talking about the right for a person to make decisions with her medical providers, informed by science. We’re talking about maternal health here. We’re talking about a woman’s right to determine her own reproductive fate. We’re talking about the power of a large percentage of the population to demand and experience equal treatment.

I can’t speak for the rest of our LGBTQ+ alphabet, but in this matter as in so many others, I don’t think many of you desire to return to “the good old days,” the America of the 19th and 20th centuries.” Like many of you, I had assumed that we were beyond a point in history where half our population were viewed primarily as brood mares. And yet, we find ourselves in a place where we rail against the ghosts of that past, where we are, as the line from perhaps the greatest American novel goes, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

In summary, I can’t speak for the rest of our alphabet, but as for me, I ‘line up with the girls’