Is there a difference between health care and healthcare? Between caring for one’s health and being subjected to the medical establishment, the industry of health, the clinical experience? Is there – or should there be – such a thing as queer healthcare?
“When was your last period?”
“Do you think you might be pregnant?”
“What medication are you on? Are you on birth control?”
Those questions, most recently (and repeatedly) asked when I was in the hospital in 2010 to get my gallbladder removed. Doctors came in and asked. Nurses came in and asked. More doctors. More nurses.
To some extent, I accept the medical necessity of such questions. From one perspective, they’re affirming: the person asking assumes I’m a cisgender woman, complete with uterus, ovaries, and the ability to menstruate and get pregnant. From another perspective, they’re oppressive: they are making assumptions about my body, my identity. And for trans men, the opposite may be true: they may be menstruating, pregnant, have gynecological problems that doctors won’t or don’t know how to acknowledge and treat.
Fitting in makes other people’s lives easier. We live in a culture that says “You can be anything you want! If you can dream it, you can do it! Reach for the stars!” But when you’ve reached, when you’ve become that thing you want, can only be that thing. Not more than one thing. Not one thing one day, and something else the next. Self identification is one thing, but ambiguity (perceived or real) is something else entirely.
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