Who: Transgender and gender non-conforming physicians, scientists, and other health care professionals.
What: Interviews, written responses, and commentary about self-discovery and coming out, navigating medicine and science as a transgender person, the importance of gender diversity in medicine, and how their roles as physicians and scientists intersect with their position in the broader transgender community.
When: Roughly once a month.
Where: This blog!
Why: Over the past six months, I have been doing amazing work with Pride in Practice on increasing health care professionals’ knowledge about issues specific to the LGBTQIA+ community. As the Transgender Medicine section editor, I have spoken with experts at WashU and across the globe on topics ranging from chest binding to the safety of hormone treatment to the details of gender affirming surgeries. While these experts are amazing, and highly knowledgeable in their field, I began to notice something: not a single person I spoke with about transgender health care was trans. Further, in my 2 years of medical school up to that point, I had met only one transgender physician, and few “out” transgender students.
I know how important visibility and representation is. Through the American Medical Women’s Association, I’ve gotten to see examples of strong women leaning in and thriving in leadership positions in their fields. Through LGBTQMed and OutMed, I’ve been able to feel comfortable as I questioned my sexuality. However, while there is a growing movement for gay, lesbian, and bisexual physicians and scientists to be out and proud, the same cannot be said for those who are trans and/or gender non-conforming.
Since I already have a platform as “that medical student who writes about trans things”, I figured I’d use it to expand that discussion to transgender representation within the medical and scientific community. To that end, I have reached out to physicians and scientists at my own institution, at conferences, and over the internet. I have gathered a small group who want to share their experiences and increase visibility. Hopefully as this project continues, we will gather more stories from more people, so we can showcase a diverse range of experiences being trans in medicine.
How: You can see the master list of questions here. As a note, not everyone will answer every question, and sometimes interviews will take us on wild tangents that cover topics entirely different from this list. Responses and interviews will appear in text format, and audio format when available.
To get involved: 1) Follow my blog for the latest updates and interviews! 2) Share these articles with your friends, family, classmates and colleagues. 3) If you are trans or gender non-conforming and you want to contribute, head on over to the Contact page and send me a message! In the message, tell me whether you’d like to do an interview, text responses, or an audio or text essay about your experiences. 4) If you want to help with transcribing or some other part of the production process, let me know on the contact page as well.
Be on the lookout for the first interview later this month!
The Ideatorium 