Today is international Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day where we honor those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 2017 has already seen at least 25 transgender people fatally shot or killed by other violent means—and the vast majority were transgender people of color. “While the details of these cases differ, it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable,” HRC declares.
GLAAD has more about the history of TDOR here; a number of vigils are taking place around Maine. A memorial was also held in Portland on Sunday evening.
Maine Family Planning offers Open Door trans health services to folks at our clinics in Waterville and Lewiston, and statewide through our groundbreaking telemedicine technology. We are thrilled to also be on the cusp of expanding in-clinic services to additional locations in 2018. Soon, clinicians in Belfast, Bangor, and Fort Kent will also be able to offer trans health care on-site. This is an important deepening of our organizational commitment to reproductive justice. As Cazembe Murphy Jackson wrote today at Rewire: “It is so important for trans people to be included in the conversations about reproductive justice. ”
Jackson said:
We must reflect on our struggles and ensure that all of us have the ability to decide if, when, and how to become a parent, on our own terms. I believe this is at the core of reproductive justice: In order for any of us to have a taste of reproductive justice, it must be available to all of us. We must honor trans people as we are, while we are here, in every expression of our gender identity and reproduction. Honoring our resilience is resistance and remembrance.
To mark TDOR, Maine Family Planning nurse practitioners (NPs) Meredith Hunt and Sara Hayes—who manage the Open Door Program in Waterville and Lewiston, respectively—offered these reflections on the transgender health services they offer and their impact in Maine communities.
Meredith Hunt:
I really enjoy providing transhealth services. It feels good to have such a direct impact on improving people’s lives. I love when I can see the happiness in someone’s face when I say “Yeah, I can help you with that.” I also love that my patients in the Open Door Program really like coming in. Many of them have told me that it is the only medical appointment to which they look forward. I think what we are doing is so important and I see the impact in the community first hand. It is not just young people coming to see us. I have several patients who are over 50 and are so happy to finally have a place to go where they are accepted as who they truly are.
I will be attending the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) services in Waterville this year. I have attended the ceremonies in Portland in the past. When they read all the names of the transgender people who have lost their lives in the past year, I can’t help but get emotional. It is just so wrong and heartbreaking. I hope that by providing the services we offer, that we in some way are making the lives of transgender people in Maine better.
Sara Hayes:
I am very proud of our trans program at MFP. We currently have roughly 100 trans patients who Meredith and I are helping through this process and I absolutely love my trans practice.
Working with trans folk to get their inner and outer selves in balance is incredibly rewarding. Going through puberty as a teenager is especially rough for trans people and together we go through it again, but this time getting the hormones right. I love hearing about and seeing the physical changes my trans patients go through and their excitement is catching, for sure.
I’m also pretty excited that we are expanding the number of MFP NPs doing trans care. We have patients coming to us all over the state. Meredith and I can do visits via telehealth at any of our sites but I think it is important that we expand our on-site trans care options as well. Julie in Belfast has been getting up to speed and thanks to a MeHAF grant, we are getting Priscilla from Bangor and Christina from Fort Kent trained as well. My dream is that before too long, trans care is going to be available at all sites with any of our NPs.
Trans folk, especially trans women, have been the targets of violence and derision for forever. I have been doing trans care for almost 5 years and I hear from my patients that they are getting more support from their families and friends than trans folk have in the past. But for many, safety and support are not a given. The Transgender Day of Remembrance is not only a tribute to those who have tragically lost their lives because of other people’s hate and intolerance, but it is a reminder to all of us that we can’t be complacent about safety because unfortunately trans people are still and will continue to be targeted. Especially since the current administration in Washington is just adding fuel to sparks of intolerance and ignorance that will ignite into violence, not only against LGBT people. but also against minorities, women, and low-income people.
