In honor of National Doctors Day on March 30, we at Lambda Legal want to celebrate the physicians who provide life-saving medically necessary health care to our LGBTQ+ community, especially transgender and nonbinary youth.
Even in the face of retaliation, threats to their livelihood, and legal action, these doctors remain steadfast in their commitment to their patients’ health and well-being. Their essential work is grounded in evidence-based science, while their approach upholds the humanity and dignity of the LGBTQ+ people for whom they care.
This year, we’ve seen state legislatures across the country introduce anti-trans bills targeting gender-affirming care at an alarming rate, many seeking to prohibit access to gender-affirming care and criminalize those who provide it. It is crucial right now to advocate for the doctors who have advocated for us and our right to health care.
These brave medical professionals include: Dr. Juanita Hodax, one of the plaintiffs in van Garderen v. Montana, our lawsuit challenging Montana’s anti-trans Senate Bill 99. There’s also Dr. Richard Ogden Roberts, Dr. David Paul, and Dr. Patrick O’Malley, who are plaintiffs in our case Loe v. Texas to strike down Texas Senate Bill 14, which prohibits medical care for trans youth; and Southampton Community Healthcare and its providers, like Dr. Michael Donovan and Nurse Practitioner Nicole Carr, who are plaintiffs in Noe v. Parson, our legal challenge to Missouri’s gender-affirming care ban.
Recognition is also in order for Dr. Riley Smith, a gender-affirming care provider in North Carolina. He is one of the plaintiffs in Voe v. Mansfield, Lambda Legal’s recent lawsuit opposing the state’s discriminatory House Bill 808, which bars trans adolescents from accessing medically necessary care. Dr. Smith is also himself a transgender man, intimately familiar with the hurdles of navigating the healthcare system — as well as society at large — as a trans person.
In a touching new narrative essay titled “For All the Young Trans Folks,” Dr. Smith talks about why he felt called to this line of work and discusses the very real, human impact that bans such as HB 808 have on young trans patients like his own. He pledges never to stop advocating for trans youth and urges everyone to do the same.
Read the first few paragraphs of the essay below. Head to the website for Family Medicine journal for the full piece.
“A 14-year-old sits across the exam room from me, his brightly colored hair contradicting his weary expression. “What happens if I have to stop testosterone?” Felix asks. His newly deepened voice cracks, and I can tell that he is trying not to cry. I am not sure whether he can tell that I am doing the same.
Over the past few months, this conversation has played out over and over in my clinic and in clinics across the nation. While legislators sit in sterile office buildings writing laws whose impact they cannot begin to fathom, I am alongside my patients in a field of uncertainty, fear, and despair. State after state has passed legislation restricting the ability of transgender youth to access gender affirming care. I was raised and practice medicine in North Carolina, the latest state to pass such a ban. A ban on health care that we know is safe, effective, and evidence-based. Health care that is supported by every major medical organization in the United States. Health care that is lifesaving in the truest sense.
When I met Felix, he graciously shared his story with a maturity that exceeded his young age. Struggles with his identity, the disconnect he experienced between aspects of his body and those he longed to have—a deeper voice, a flatter chest. His parents sought to be supportive and had many questions. At their core, they just wanted a child who was happy and healthy, and to make informed decisions about their child’s care. “What changes would these medicines cause? What if this is just a phase? Will this make his life more difficult?”
I became a family physician because, like many of us, I was drawn to the idea of building relationships to improve the health of individuals and communities throughout the life span. As a transgender man, I have experienced firsthand the stark disparities caused by discrimination and transphobia, and I have always known that caring for my community would be integral to my career. It would be naïve to think being an openly transgender doctor providing gender affirming care in the South was always going to be easy, but I never anticipated the politicization of transgender identity and health care we have seen recently.”
Source:
Smith R. For All the Young Trans Folks. Fam Med. 2024;56(1):52-53. https://doi.org/10.22454/FamMed.2023.514120.
Copyright 2024 by Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. All rights reserved. Used by permission.