Getting access to gender affirming care can be tough!
Gender diverse people experience discrimination at our healthcare provider’s offices in plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
They don’t have our gender on their forms.
The receptionist uses the wrong name or pronouns.
The wrong name gets called to the exam room.
The list can go on and on – it can be exhausting and traumatic!
When we manage to brave all of these hurdles, we finally get in the room with our provider to ask about hormones, and they tell us we need a letter from a mental health provider before they can give us treatment for our endocrinological condition.
So we do it all again…this time with a mental health provider…
QueerDoc wants to BREAK that cycle!
QueerDoc does NOT require a letter from a mental health provider prior to most patients* starting gender affirming medical care.
QueerDoc follows an informed consent model.
What is informed consent?
Informed consent means that the providers working at QueerDoc can assess patients’ capacity to understand what might happen in the course of gender affirming care. In informed consent, the QueerDoc provider will discuss possible treatments and all the details of what that treatment may mean for the individual, including:
- The risks of treatment
- The benefits of treatment
- Alternatives to medical treatments
- The unknowns of medical treatments
- The limitations of medical treatments, and
- The risks of no treatment
All this information empowers you to make a decision that is right for your body and goals.
This means you can start hormones through QueerDoc without the whole circus above – just an appointment and some labs to get going.
QueerDoc also recognizes that gender diversity and “gender dysphoria” don’t always go hand-in-hand. Some gender diverse people don’t experience dysphoria, or they may experience gender euphoria when affirmed. QueerDoc feels confident exploring your gender diversity with you whatever path and shape it takes.
There is no ONE WAY to be trans. There is no ONE WAY to be non-binary.
QueerDoc providers are gender diverse themselves, so they have intimate personal and professional knowledge of both giving and receiving healthcare. Our goal is to raise the bar in gender affirming care. We provide expert, high-quality, culturally competent, and individualized gender affirming care.
*Very rarely, a person’s capacity may be limited by mental, emotional, or intellectual health issues. In these cases, QueerDoc may ask for a specialist consult to clarify patient capacity for consent, but this is INCREDIBLY rare.
Reviewed April, 2021
