After a comment was made about a transgender politician’s “privilege,” transgender Twitter users tweeted about their #TransgenderPrivilege (or more accurately, their lack thereof).
While most tweets centered around how they are treated by their family and society, many also dealt with the healthcare obstacles they encounter as patients and what they wish healthcare providers knew.
Their uncomfortable experiences include insensitive or ignorant comments from healthcare providers…
#TransgenderPrivilege is having your hormone prescription because the pharmacist "couldn't figure out why someone with a man's name would take estrogen".
— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) August 16, 2018
#TransgenderPrivilege is having numerous doctors tell you they wont help you start HRT because you look too masc or fem to transition/that you will never look as good as you do now/"you were made the way you were meant to be"
— _____Emmy Voorhees, CraterGay Baehemoth_____ (@Whorrorer) August 16, 2018
For real ya'll are lucky we survive this shit
…as well as more subtle, unspoken causes of discomfort.
#TransgenderPrivilege means having medical professionals feel so uncomfortable around you that they won’t touch you.
— Mari Brighe (@MariBrighe) August 16, 2018
#transgenderprivilege Is having to have a family doctor not trained in gyno care do all your gyno cause if you were to walk into a women's clinic you'd be stared at, misgendered and outed to all the other patients.
— Sean Withers_______ (@SeanWithersDraw) August 16, 2018
Patients revealed the painful treatments they had to endure in order to transition…
#TransgenderPrivilege is a hash tag now?
— Trysha __ (@growflet) August 16, 2018
Okay, #TransgenderPrivilege is having spent 174.75 hours of my life getting electrified needles stabbed into my face, in part because i couldn't start HRT/blockers when I was an early teen.
(I kept a spreadsheet, i'm like that)
#transgenderprivilege is participating in eugenics just to get legally recognized as your gender. Most states require you to sterilize yourself by removing your testes and/or get a vaginoplasty before you can change the gender marker on legal documents.
— Tsundere (I guess?) Sera (@SeraChimera) August 16, 2018
(oh, yeah, that's another #transgenderprivilege for you: enduring decades of completely ineffectual psychiatric treatment, being put on one antidepressant or mood stabilizer or anxiolytic after another, not a one of them working because YOU CAN'T TREAT GENDER DYSPHORIA THAT WAY)
— kara_dreamer (@kara_dreamer) August 16, 2018
Having to go through agonizing, expensive surgery to feel comfortable in your body and then having to hear everyone call you a “fake” woman because of it #TransgenderPrivilege pic.twitter.com/hD4ZnDBo0j
— Serena Daniari (@serenajazmine) August 16, 2018
…and the mental gymnastics of navigating their healthcare.
#TransgenderPrivilege means having to keep your bipolar disorder from your HRT doctor, and your transition from your psychiatrist, because transitioning is exponentially harder if you're already diagnosed as mentally ill.
— Blake's Dungeon (@BlakesDungeon) August 16, 2018
#TransgenderPrivilege is crying yourself to sleep because You're on your last refill of meds and you lost your insurance.
— ___ (@lillyhime) August 16, 2018
It's crying yourself to sleep because your girlfriend can't afford her hrt.
#TransgenderPrivilege is having to read medical research and philosophy, anthropology and sociology, law and religion, all at doctorate levels, just to navigate everyday life.
— Ms. Penny Oaken (@PennyOaken) August 16, 2018
