Trans health discrimination legal again in US 10 years later

When I was young, coming to realise I was trans, the 90s trans liberation movement was at full swing, people were uncovering cases like the death of Tyra Hunter who was hit by a car and left to die by emergency medical responders who refused to treat her, or Robert Eads who died of ovarian cancer after more than a dozen doctors refused to treat him because he was transgender. You can find stories of similar as recently as the 2010s in America.

This problem is obviously not confined to the Anglo-American sphere either, with a 2016 incident being recorded of a trans activist in Pakistan being denied treatment for gunshot wounds leading to her death. Transgender health discrimination is a problem worldwide, grim jokes about trans broken arm syndrome have been a staple within the online trans community for years.

The deaths of trans people as a result of bigotry driven medical negligence are simply the tip of the iceberg. The social media outpouring in 2013 for the hashtag #transdocfail showed similarly how much normalised negligence is built into our healthcare systems everywhere, and as identified by trans journalist Jane Fae, much of this also relates to how the handful of sympathetic medical practitioners are consistently subject to extreme legal scrutiny by institutions and anti-transgender activists actively trying to shut down supportive healthcare services.

Things are pretty grim for trans people around the world, and undergoing a significant period of regression. I extend my solidarity and best wishes towards the trans people of the United States in this difficult time, especially with the news of two black trans sisters being murdered in the last week alone, and a trans man killed by cops only a couple of weeks earlier. All I have to say is that our trans ancestors showed us how to survive, to fight back and to win, and we shall do the same.