Dr. Laura & Sean | Beyond Do Harm Storytelling Media Project

The health care system is not just the doctor that treats you, it’s the entire system

I remember just feeling very alone... it was just me and my family against this huge system.

It’s a lot when you are a young kid.

I didn’t feel safe.

Me and my mom, we built up a system before we went to the doctors. You know, on the car drive, my mom would play my favorite song.

So I would like, calm down.

No matter what we came in for, I would sit the farthest seat away from the front desk. So they couldn’t see me.

They couldn't see me because if they saw me and they saw that my chart said male, even though obviously I identify as female and I look very female.

People would get very confused, so I had to stay as far away as I could.

I was anxious every time... we had a process where I would not be seen.

I'm Laura. I am a lot of things, but among them a doctor for trans kids.

When doxxing started happening of trans kids and doctors in our community, the immediate impulse in the health care system that I work in was to put police everywhere, like, let's put police in every clinic where there's trans people.

Police are often the tools that are used for harassment for trans folks. My job is to be a doctor for people... so if my clinic is a place where people aren't safe, then I can't do my job at all.

When that police proposal happened, I immediately was like there are no police allowed in my clinic. And if there's a police officer that's posted next to me, I will not be arriving to work.

The ‘let's put police officers in all of the clinics’ thing died down pretty quickly.

We need to keep each other safe... we're all bound to keep each other safe.

We have to try and think about decreasing policing in environments that are serving gender expansive people.

Which is to say that the political violence, the police violence, the health care violence, it's all connected.

And so all of us who have any kind of power - even if we don't think we do -, we need to speak up in the moment.

There are tons of people who can. When you know something is happening, then you need to say it in the moment directly and not be afraid.