Health

Pride Week: Free Health Clinic Provides Services To Transgenders

June 20, 2007

A free health clinic on wheels provides some unique services for the transgender community. As NY1’s coverage of Pride Week continues, Health & Fitness reporter Kafi Drexel takes us there in the following report.

When Denise Guzman first started taking hormones to transition from male to female, she was doing it on the black market, without medical supervision and says some of the initial side effects were distressing

“Just like a little depression,” says Guzman. “At the beginning I couldn’t understand what was going to happen to me. I was crying without a reason.”

According to the Queens-based Hispanic AIDS Forum, the borough is home to the largest community of Spanish-speaking transgender females in the country. They say many of the women are often un-documented, and without health insurance. So when it comes to taking risks with getting some of the treatments they need, Guzman isn't alone. And some of the complications can be far worse than mood swings.

“We don't know where these medications are coming from and whether or not they really are the hormones that they say they are,” says George Fesser of the Hispanic AIDS Forum. “They don't go through the same FDA regulations that the hormones that you find in the United States would go through. Then we started seeing that a lot of the women were having… liver problems, developing cirrhosis.”

That's why the AIDS Forum's TransLatina program is now teaming up with Callen-Lorde Community Health Center to help these women get the treatment they need without doing harm to their body. Once a week, a mobile unit comes to them where they can get hormone therapy and other care for free and with medical care they've been lacking.

“A lot of these people are marginalized. They can't access health care,” says Callen-Lorde Community Health Center Nurse Practitioner Renaldo Barrios. “So we're very happy to be here to offer them, and we're sensi[tive] to their needs. What we're trying to do is keep them in the health care system to continue their needs.”

In addition to hormone therapy a lot of these ladies are coming with other needs related to their transition, including complications from botched plastic surgeries, to STDs and mental health needs – all of which they are able to get help with here.

In addition to medical care they need, these women say the special services provide them with something else: comfort, consultation and an understanding of what they are going through.

“We can talk with the doctor and explain what is the problem about transsexual people,” says transgender patient Lisa Galen. “It is difficult for us to talk with the doctor about our problems… and now we can talk about anything with this clinic.”

– Kafi Drexel

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=70915&search_result=1&stid=19

_________________
Man [...] must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth." (Jean Paul Sartre, 1943)

cool

_________________
I look back at most of my life and think "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!??"