Hi!
It´s Shawn again, from the Gender Health Training Institute.
The other day, I was on the long drive from California to New Mexico to attend the USPATH scientific conference, which gave me the rare opportunity to reflect. If you´re like me, jumping from client meetings to teaching and then to another meeting, you know that there´s little time to think these days.
I was asking myself how I can contribute more as a professional. First, I had to admit that no matter how seasoned a clinician I am, the times we´re living in are unprecedented — not so much in the history of humanity, but in our lifetimes.
Never have I felt more challenged in my mission of guiding the journey of trans persons to authenticity than now, when politicians and the media are hell bent on lying and blaming every single bad thing that happens on the trans community.
Their threats are real, not to be taken lightly!
Phase four of the professional journey for a Gender-Affirming Clinician is the phase some of us hope to achieve, the specialist. As such we are expected to navigate the most challenging cases and situations, serve as an advocate and lead breakthroughs in research. You are the one they call when they need an expert witness in a legal case, or who talks to the legislature in your state to defend health care for gender diverse people, so you can easily find yourself at the eye of the hurricane, trying to make the most impact possible.
While reflecting on my role as a Gender Specialist and how I can contribute more in the face of the situation, two crucial facts came to mind.
The first one is intersections: All trans persons are being targeted, but some of them have layers of intersections that tremendously aggravate their situation; race, predominantly BIPOC and Latinx people are being chased, beaten down, incarcerated, or deported. Trans women, athletes, and individuals who are neurodivergent are at the center of these discriminatory efforts to turn them into second-class citizens.
The other topic is misinformation. The blatant way serious research is misinterpreted and twisted, and non-serious research is created on the run, with the sole purpose of misleading the public and attacking the trans community, thus requiring expert opposition.
Intersections that complicate cases and exacerbate anxiety require extra efforts to help out clients stay engage in their care. Threats to cancel or actual cancellations of gender-affirming medical and social interventions require that we work harder to help them secure care; I´ve seen families move to another state or even another country to access care, and others taking extraordinary measures to protect themselves and remain safe, especially when also being racially profiled.
When governments use misinformation and disinformation, they know they´re lying, but they also understand the psychological mechanisms that allow them convince people of these notions, even if those ideas are completely nonsensical
Normally, every effort to inform the public, even if it’s on an individual basis, helps combat prejudice. But now it´s not business as usual, and walking the extra mile to write to your congressperson, putting together a team of experts to secure care for your client, and going out of the way to reverse this wave of anti-trans nonsense is the role of the specialist. Actually, I would hope you would do this even if becoming a specialist isn’t your goal.
Think about it: we can be a trans person´s last line of defense and all the hope they have left!
I´m grateful for your presence here and for your efforts in creating a better world for gender diversity!
I hope you enjoy what we have carefully selected for you in this month´s newsletter, dedicated to Phase Four, the Gender Specialist, to help you be a better professional every day.
Warmly
Shawn