(no subject)
Aug. 25th, 2008 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_fantastic_ms_foxFeeling less sick now, trying to get all the MSP business in order.
Hi, I saw Drs. Robinow and Knudson for an appointment on July 9th. They said that everything was fine and that they'd pass on approval to MSP and I should hear from them around now, but Carol McNeill at MSP emalied me saying that she hadn't received any such paperwork regarding myself. Do you know if your office has sent it off?
This system is irritating. MSP needs to hear from the assessors so I can get a letter from MSP. I need the letter from MSP so I can book an appointment in Montreal (and pay the $1000 deposit myself because trans people are special and have to pay their own deposits on publicly-funded surgeries). So I can go to Montreal and finish this.
These delays piss me off. Even the assessment was delayed by a month because my doctor forgot to send off the paperwork.
At least my experiences are the product of genuine oversight. That's better than other people's experiences - such as Gwen Haworth's of She's A Boy I Knew whose doctor told her that she'd sent off the paperwork at every appoinment over about six months... and yet the gender clinic of the time never seems to have received them...
I still believe this is a shitty system.
The idea that we are supposed to wait and rely on others, that passive waiting is a sign of... mental health? Genuine gender identity? A healthy approach to bodily dysphoria?
I've heard this over and over again, usually when it's directed at other people: if you're really serious/healthy/trans, you've known this for awhile, and you won't mind waiting a few more months.
This sentiment makes no sense.
Consider:
You know you've hated your job for the last six years, so clearly you won't mind staying on another half year before changing employers.
No. I hate my job. I told you I quit tow weeks ago. I am leaving now. Goodbye.
You've been thinking about divorce for the last four years, and you made up your mind four months ago, and tried to tell your spouse three months ago but ze avoided you, and sat hir down and made it unmistakeable two months ago, so clearly you won't mind if it takes another three months to start the proceedings, and two years to finalize them.
Uh. No.
Bull. Shit.
And yet, we're supposed to enjoy this creeping process because it's healthy. Except until that undefined point where it isn't and then we're supposed to call the office and bother them because then active involvement is a sign of mental health, or genuine gender identity, or a healthy approach to bodily dysphoria.
"Patronizing" is a good word. Or at least it's the best one I can think of.
"Contradictory" is too: two standards that oppose each other which we must both satisfy.
We are starting to see trangendered counsellors and medical office staff. And there might even be a handful of trans doctors and psychiatrists in a few years. Perhaps even trans surgeons? This is good.
I do not mean to say that non-trans people can not or should not be provide trans medical care. But I do think there is something bolloxed up about a transgendered health care system (by which I mean not just BC, but in general) that doesn't have any trans people in it, or at least none in the role of decision-makers. It would be like a cardiac health program that never had anyone working there with a heart problem. Or a program for the seciously mentally ill that... oh wait, most of those are like that.
Imagine being a health care provider and fucking up.
Now imagine being a trans health care provider and fucking up, then having one of your equal-status nurses or doctors explaining to you what this was like for them and how this must be for your patient. (This is an important feedback mechanism.)
I think of a scholarship program for people involved in transgendered activism/advocacy (whether they themselves are trans or not) who go into medicine.
Hi, I saw Drs. Robinow and Knudson for an appointment on July 9th. They said that everything was fine and that they'd pass on approval to MSP and I should hear from them around now, but Carol McNeill at MSP emalied me saying that she hadn't received any such paperwork regarding myself. Do you know if your office has sent it off?
This system is irritating. MSP needs to hear from the assessors so I can get a letter from MSP. I need the letter from MSP so I can book an appointment in Montreal (and pay the $1000 deposit myself because trans people are special and have to pay their own deposits on publicly-funded surgeries). So I can go to Montreal and finish this.
These delays piss me off. Even the assessment was delayed by a month because my doctor forgot to send off the paperwork.
At least my experiences are the product of genuine oversight. That's better than other people's experiences - such as Gwen Haworth's of She's A Boy I Knew whose doctor told her that she'd sent off the paperwork at every appoinment over about six months... and yet the gender clinic of the time never seems to have received them...
I still believe this is a shitty system.
The idea that we are supposed to wait and rely on others, that passive waiting is a sign of... mental health? Genuine gender identity? A healthy approach to bodily dysphoria?
I've heard this over and over again, usually when it's directed at other people: if you're really serious/healthy/trans, you've known this for awhile, and you won't mind waiting a few more months.
This sentiment makes no sense.
Consider:
You know you've hated your job for the last six years, so clearly you won't mind staying on another half year before changing employers.
No. I hate my job. I told you I quit tow weeks ago. I am leaving now. Goodbye.
You've been thinking about divorce for the last four years, and you made up your mind four months ago, and tried to tell your spouse three months ago but ze avoided you, and sat hir down and made it unmistakeable two months ago, so clearly you won't mind if it takes another three months to start the proceedings, and two years to finalize them.
Uh. No.
Bull. Shit.
And yet, we're supposed to enjoy this creeping process because it's healthy. Except until that undefined point where it isn't and then we're supposed to call the office and bother them because then active involvement is a sign of mental health, or genuine gender identity, or a healthy approach to bodily dysphoria.
"Patronizing" is a good word. Or at least it's the best one I can think of.
"Contradictory" is too: two standards that oppose each other which we must both satisfy.
We are starting to see trangendered counsellors and medical office staff. And there might even be a handful of trans doctors and psychiatrists in a few years. Perhaps even trans surgeons? This is good.
I do not mean to say that non-trans people can not or should not be provide trans medical care. But I do think there is something bolloxed up about a transgendered health care system (by which I mean not just BC, but in general) that doesn't have any trans people in it, or at least none in the role of decision-makers. It would be like a cardiac health program that never had anyone working there with a heart problem. Or a program for the seciously mentally ill that... oh wait, most of those are like that.
Imagine being a health care provider and fucking up.
Now imagine being a trans health care provider and fucking up, then having one of your equal-status nurses or doctors explaining to you what this was like for them and how this must be for your patient. (This is an important feedback mechanism.)
I think of a scholarship program for people involved in transgendered activism/advocacy (whether they themselves are trans or not) who go into medicine.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 07:33 pm (UTC)