Transgender health panel addresses healthcare issues

As the Pride Center’s highlight event of the fall semester, an open Trans Health Panel was held to discuss issues and answer questions surrounding the transgender community in the health care system.

The event, held on Thursday, was sponsored by the Pride Center along with Africana Studies, The Dialogue Center; Health Advancement and Prevention Strategies; Health, Medicine, and Society; Library and Technology Services; Office of Academic Diversity; Office of Academic Outreach; and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

As the student program coordinator for the Pride Center, Liz Pines, ’16, made it her goal to publicize this event to attract viewers from all different backgrounds.

“We wanted to kind of bridge the gap between mainstream topics that people would be interested in hearing about and things that people don’t know but that would attract a crowd,” Pines said.

Panelists Kim Watson, Peggy Cadet and Sandy James come from different backgrounds and have different knowledge about the health care system, but they are all passionate about justice for the transgender and intersex communities. Their goal is to help educate those who are unfamiliar with issues that members within these communities face.

Students studying everything from journalism to business and pre-med attended the event out of pure interest and the desire to gain knowledge on a topic that is not often covered in class.

As the new director of the Pride Center, Chelsea Fullerton made it her goal to assist the student staff on reaching many organizations on campus.

“We honed in on the topic of health because we know that there are a lot of students on this campus who are pre-health and who are involved in health equity in some way, and we also know that transgender folks experience a lot of health disparities,” Fullerton said.

Sirri Alang, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology who received her doctorate in health services research, policy and administration at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, moderated the discussion.

Before the panel, Watson, Cadet and James went to different departments and offices to provide information about transgender health, and they spoke to the health center and peer health advisers.

Watson, a transgender woman of color and also as the co-founder of Community Kinship Life, provides counseling and supplies with her medical and non-medical skills to men and women who have affirmed their genders.

“Anyone who is going through medical school, they never teach you anything about gender studies or transgender individuals,” Watson said.

Because of this, Watson is passionate about educating those who are trained in the medical field.

James is in pursuit of his Ph.D. from Georgetown University and is also the Survey Project Manager with the National Center for Transgender Equality. As a trans man of color who currently attends a university, James faces the difficulty of having his student health insurance cover all of his medical bills.

“All of my trans-related care is done through my health provider,” James said. “I don’t tell my student health provider about this, so I have to pay out of pocket.”

Next to James sat Cadet, an intersex individual who identifies as a woman after she transitioned in early adulthood. She emphasized the importance of educating others about the current issues.

“The first step has to be wanting to fix the disparity,” Cadet said.

To fix the health care system and make it more justified for the transgender community, students must be educated about problems and the unfortunate analytics that come with these problems.

“If we eradicated the stigmatism of trans-ness, there would be no problem in the world of health providing,” James said.