When the ideology becomes life-threatening.
A young #trans man broke his arm playing football & is rushed to hospital. Before being treated he is asked to discuss his trans status & hormones at length. Why? So wrong! SEE: https://t.co/iJ8K3u47jk @RozKaveney @MunroeBergdorf @JakeGraf1 @christineburns @MxJackMonroe
— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) April 5, 2018
Peter Tatchell tweets:
A young #trans man broke his arm playing football & is rushed to hospital. Before being treated he is asked to discuss his trans status & hormones at length. Why? So wrong!
It’s called taking a medical history, and it has to be done. They have to know what meds patients are on in order to avoid killing them. That’s why.
Comments
20 responses to “Trans-medical advice”
Because, you ignorant fool, hormone blockers and sex hormones both affect bone density and bone growth, which are sort of important in treating a broken bone. It’s pretty much the same as how my orthopedist asked about my steroid inhaler and courses of prednisone for my asthma.
I like that the article from pink news never actually discusses what doctors and nurses are supposed to do beyond a vague notion of education.
This is so silly. I have a genetic disease that killed some of my relatives in their 40’s. I have managed to live to 70 but only because I take a cocktail of eight drugs every day. Some of them react badly with common anaesthetics and anti-clotting agents and I was told to stop taking two of them a fortnight before my recent knee operations so as to minimise the danger. I have taken to carrying around my repeat prescription form which lists the drugs and has contact details for my doctor just in case I am ever rushed to hospital unconscious. Over Christmas I visited the local NHS walk-in centre to see a doctor and I was asked not just whether I actually take the drugs regularly as prescribed (apparently some people don’t), but also about the history of my treatment and whether I took any non-prescription drugs, including ‘herbal’ remedies. Without this questioning I would not have felt confident that I was in competent hands and I would have been worried if it had not happened. I understand that you can sometimes be asked questions you find embarrassing but it’s surely better than ending up dead.
I think we’re supposed to pretend that those puberty blockers and hormones don’t exist, or at least that they have absolutely no effects beyond quasi-magically conferring Real Gender status on their users.
Just like we’re supposed to pre–I mean, just like we all know that there is no difference between trans X and X.
After all, you wouldn’t need to ask a natal man (can we still call them that?) about his testosterone levels when treating him for a broken arm, right? So
Same Thing with a (trans) man. It’s Wrongthink to suggest otherwise.
“Natal Man” sounds like something the Leakys might have dug up in Olduvai Gorge.
#1 Alona
And then there is the point that the medic doesn’t know which bits of medical history will be impactful or not until it has been heard. The expecation appears to be that the person taking the history needs to know what the answers are in advance in order to know whether the answer to the question is relevant, and hence whether to ask at all.
Is anyone else reminded of a Pratchett character by this silliness? The woman that kept leaving her precognition on. I must get back into those books someday…
Also, being asked is not the same as being compelled. Physicians *ask* about medical history usually because they want to help and it’s fundamentally what diagnosis is. I don’t think people are being *forced* to reveal all their history or face denial of treatment.
That would be an absolutely terrible thing but it is not a thing – as far as I can tell – that’s happening as a matter of routine here in the UK. It wouldn’t be just a trans thing if it were, it would be more fundamental than that.
As a woman, I am regularly asked about my sexual history, whether I’ve had an abortion, or whether I might be pregnant. Those are just as intrusive of questions, and I answer them truthfully without going all huffy or posting it on Twitter or Facebook in a snit.
But then, I am a biologist, and I understand the relevance of these questions to my treatment.
Oh hell, we couldn’t get a notice that didn’t pack in:
as if there was such a thing a monumental Native American culture with a uniform standard of belief. Rather than two continents worth of wildly varying and incompatible cultures and languages.
More direct question: just what incident are we referring to? How do we know to what length ‘trans status & hormones’ were, or should be, discussed? Its possible that someone really DID have their immediate care delayed with silly questions. Or, indeed, a hair-trigger cartoon trans-activist might have thrown a fit at having any information requested at all.
You’re all (including Tatchell, I s’pose) being too literal. Trans Broken Arm Syndrome is not literally about broken bones or ignorance about the effects of testosterone on bone growth. It’s a metaphor for how trans people are pathologised, with any ailment they may have being assumed to be a side effect of their gender variance. It also refers to how trans people can be denied appropriate treatment due to cultural cisnormativity.
If anyone’s interested beyond wanting to confirm their prejudices about “ideology” and “Wrongthink”, you can read more here:
‘Trans Broken Arm Syndrome’ and the way our healthcare system fails trans people
Well if Tatchell himself, the source of the tweet, is being too literal, then we’re not, because we’re responding to what Tatchell said, which purports to be a factual statement about a specific incident and asks an idiotic question about it. It could still be true that “trans people are pathologised, with any ailment they may have being assumed to be a side effect of their gender variance,” while it’s also true that taking a medical history including all medications is just SOP and necessary.
Bang-up job of persuading us to stop seeing accusations of Wrongthink, Bob.
I like that the accompanying photograph has a cast in blue and pink, ‘cos that’s the way to break those pesky stereotypes about gender.
It’s also true that women are pathologised, and many of their medical problems either dismissed or misdiagnosed as gynecological, and their attempts at seeking permanent birth control belittled and resisted and ignored. To the extent that trans people face the same routine skepticism, it is from that same taproot of patriarchy and misogyny.
“It’s also true that women are pathologised…”
Just reading a book called “Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul Offit. The most harrowing so far is that on lobotomies. Offit mentions a number of times how it was usually women who received this treatment, often without informed consent and at the behest of males in their families. The chapter includes a brief retelling of the infuriating and heartbreaking story of Rosemary Kennedy, a younger sister of JFK and RFK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy
Ugh yes. I was thinking “Rosemary Kennedy” as I read your penultimate sentence. I read a biography of her not long ago; what Joe Senior did to her is horrifying.
Older sister than Jack, actually, she was the oldest daughter, junior only to Joe.
She had mild brain damage because of lack of oxygen during the birth, because the doctor fucked up.
One of the instances of transmisogyny listed in SilentBob’s article is a trans woman being told by a gynaecologist’s office, “sorry, we can’t help you.” I’d have thought a transwoman would go to her surgeon for a check up. I can see that gynaecologists might feel they don’t have expertise in neo-vaginas.
I thought the article was going to cure me of my ideology. I am very disappointed.
Ha!
I didn’t bother looking. Somehow Bob doesn’t inspire me with confidence.
I took a look at the article. There were complaints about thinking a problem might arise because of being trans, and complaints about missing a problem that does arise because of being trans. You can’t win.
The trip to the gynecologist was by someone named Ivan, so I suspect this was a trans-man seeing her regular gynecologist. People who strive to appear male probably should not be terribly surprised when they are taken to be male.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty_blocker
“The primary risks of pubertal suppression in gender dysphoric youth treated with GnRH agonists include adverse effects on bone mineralization…”
Huh. How bout that.