Last week I shared a preview of my week, A Week at QueerDoc. I said “Grey’s Anatomy” meets “Queer As Folk”, well, not really. Maybe more accurate is “Queer Eye” meets “Scrubs”. Here find that same week in review. My week filled with magical queerness representing and serving our community:
- Podcast guest- Hoping to save some Midwest queers a little emotional labor by explaining, well, basic vocabulary, and some of the discrimination/challenges we queers experience going to the doctor. How to respond when someone asks why it is a “gender unicorn” because “unicorns do not exist”? If you do not understand, I cannot explain except to say when you later told me, “I find you fascinating,” it is because I am a mother f*@#ing UNICORN! Because when presented with labels and lines and boxes and societal expectations and “unicorns don’t exist,” I asked questions, I pushed boundaries, I believed in unicorns, I wrote my own story. As Brandon Wint said, “Not queer like gay. Queer like escaping definition. Queer like some sort of fluidity and limitlessness at once. Queer like a freedom too strong to be conquered. Queer like the fearlessness to imagine what love can look like… and pursue it.” (Image of me in a black sweater at my computer)
- ECHO Usher- Volunteering in the phenomenal Seattle queer burlesque scene for Mod Carousel as an usher; getting hugged by Muscato Extaitque (The Them Fatale of Burlesque); seeing Ben De La Creme, the One the Only Inga (Reigning Queen of Burlesque), Ruby Mimosa all in the audience. Because if you have not seen Mod Carousel’s erotic, gender-bending performance art, I feel sadness for you:
(Image of me with antlers by Whitefox Hats in a gown.)
- Trans Resource Fair Volunteer Physician- Helping write letters for 14 people in 3 hours for gender marker change! Best use of my medical license ever! (Photo documentation is lacking because, well 14 people, 3 hours.)
- Thriving While Trans Attendee- Listening to amazing queers emote, share, speak, and resist through spoken word, performance pieces, and song. Favorite quotes of the night,
- “You were likely taught pink and blue before right and wrong” –Esther Eidenberg-Noppe
- “A boy who never wanted to be a girl teaching a girl who never wanted to be a boy” -Mateo Cruz
- “Edifice of fuck” –Katherine Alejandra Cross (Image of me in a faux leopard coat)
- Patient care- Offering gender affirming care through online video visits. Meeting people where they are at, so they feel safe exploring their experience of their gender with a physician. (Image of my logo because it is badass, and I cannot take pictures while seeing patients, to busy doctoring and, well, HIPPA.)
I am a doctor. I am queer. I want to change our experience of healthcare- one visit, one day at a time.
