news local Trans Symposium Forwards Mission of Educating Medical Field Christiana Lilly
christiana.lilly@gmail.com
It’s pouring rain outside, but those inside the conference rooms at the Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale are too engrossed in their seminars to care. During the second day of the third annual Transgender Symposium, the conference has drawn doctors, medical students, and the transgender community to help educate the medical community about the special needs of transgender patients. In one room, guests learned about the process of the gender From left, Jodie Reichman, Dr. Jean Rich, Kristin Rich, and Evelyn Ullah (front) at the third annual Transgender Medical Symposium at reassignment surgery as well the Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale. as the physical and emotional Photo courtesy of Christiana Lilly healing process that follows. Next door, a doctor led a Jodie Reichman is trying to change. Now in seminar about HIV/AIDS in the transgender the third year of the medical symposium, community. In another conference room, it has grown rapidly from a 90-person a lecture on transgender youth turned into standing room only meeting to a two-day a discussion amongst parents, medical affair at a hotel. This year, registration had professionals and three youths who came to to be reopened so more people could attend. talk about their experiences. It included doctors of all disciplines, case Tori Gabriel, the mother of a transgender managers, and students from medical and teen, told the story of how her family nursing schools. struggled to find the cause of her son’s “It’s finally got to the point of where I had anguish five years ago. Then identifying envisioned this when we first started it,” as an 11-year-old girl, Tori’s son became Reichman said. isolated, wore black, didn’t make eye contact, Working in HIV/AIDS for 27 years, for the and stopped being affectionate with family. last four years she has been the transgender Gabriel found a picture he had drawn of him program director for the Broward County with a girl, and initially thought he was gay. Health Department. In her experience, For the next year, the family brought their the transgender community tends to be son to the hospital four times for cutting and overlooked in LGBT causes. suicidal ideations. Finally, with support from “I still get calls from a lot of people in an online transgender teen group, he came the community who can’t find providers out to his family that he didn’t belong in the that they’re comfortable with, who are not female body he was born in. educated,” she said. “It was the worst year of our lives. It was Reichman and the Health Department are really scary,” Gabriel remembered. “When I working to compile a directory of doctors look at now, how happy he is now… It’s like I who are considered transgender friendly by have my kid back.” the community. She also tries to find out why Today, her son identifies as a male and a certain doctor doesn’t treat transgender has blossomed. He smiles, shows off his face patients, and she gets three responses: A lack happily and continues to communicate with of education, it goes against their religion, his online support group. However, another and because they don’t want to. struggle for the Gabriels was finding medical Unfortunately, Reichman said, the help for their son. Many doctors were not majority of responses are the latter two. familiar with dealing with transgender “That’s when I come back and hit them people, and it took multiple referrals before with the Hippocratic Oath. When you they found a doctor who could help their son graduate, you get that license in your hand with hormone therapy. and you medically treat somebody, you treat Gabriel says it was like “finding a needle in a human being, and I don’t care what that a haystack.” human being is or who that human being is. This is not an uncommon story for They come to you for care because they need transgender patients, and that’s something care,” Reichman said.
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// 4.17.2013 // SFGN.com //
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