FEATURE Justice STORY Fred Kuhr PHOTOS Courtesy Andy Inkster
Transgender Man Denied Fertility Services in Massachusetts Baystate Health embroiled in an official anti-discrimination suit Andy Inkster is an expert on issues related to LGBT parenting, both professionally and academically. He is the health promoter for the LGBTQ Parenting Network at the Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto. He studied sociology as a graduate student at York University concentrating on, among other things, “the construction and representation of transmasculinity within sociology.” He then chose to pursue his PhD in sociology at UMass Amherst. Given all that, Springfield, Massachuessts-based Baystate Health had no idea who they were dealing with when it denied him access to fertility services allegedly because he is a transgender man. Inkster was not about to let Baystate get away with what he saw as an injustice against the transgender community, particularly since it relates to health care. His case is now before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). He filed his complaint in 2010, but his first face-to-face meeting with Baystate under the auspices of MCAD took place only recently, on March 31. The details of that meeting are confidential, and no follow up meeting has been set. Ironically, Inkster chose to relocate to western Massachusetts from Toronto in 2007 because of the area’s progressive and LGBT-friendly reputation. “It’s a lovely place with lovely queer families driving their Subarus,” Inkster says with a smile, sitting in his Toronto office under posters with slogans such as “Who’s in your
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family tree?” and “Celebrating all fabulous fathers.” That was also the year that Inkster, after much thought and deliberation, decided to get pregnant. Although he is transgender, he still is physiologically able to conceive and bear a child. In 2009, he had his first appointment with Baystate’s fertility clinic seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF). As Inkster tells it, the trouble started when the first doctor he met with focused on his appearance rather than his parenting skills. “You seem very masculinized to have a baby,” the doctor allegedly told Inkster. He did, however, begin the treatment protocol, but after getting the runaround from one of the nurses, he was told he would not be treated unless the “guidelines committee” determined that treatment was appropriate. Inkster then met with a social worker at the facility, who focused on Inkster’s sexuality. According to a letter Inkster wrote to Baystate, the social worker “insisted on probing into my childhood experiences of gender, asking questions such as ‘How old were you when you started dressing like a man?’ and ‘What was your old name?’ She made it clear to me that she found my answers to her questions about my childhood dissatisfying.” The social worker “was also very insistent on me framing my sexuality in a way that she could understand, and repeatedly insinuated that I am confused about my sexuality.” The clinic also wanted Inkster to meet with a therapist for an assessment, a move that didn’t seem like a routine request to Inkster. So he asked for the policy regarding this, but there was no written policy. “I know that anytime a hospital does something, they have a policy,” said Inkster.
Andy Inkster and his Daughter Elise