A Letter To All
Hello.
I am a trans woman.
I come to you today in a public appeal for changes.
You see right now I'm trying to start transitioning. But because of this public perception for so many years that we are mentally unstable, insurance has required us to get "Letters of Support" before we can even start to transition.
How is that a problem you ask?
Because it is triggering. Crippling mentally. It freezes you in your tracks and leaves you helpless.
A lot of us had to deal with therapy because we had the courage to come out in the first place. A lot us still are struggling to find a therapist just for issues that ARE mental including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and others.
We are stopped in our tracks if we cannot find a therapist and honestly it's high time that this stops.
It is 2021. The science is clear that we are human beings who are valid in every single way. We don't need a therapist to "validate us" just to get the treatment we need to be who we are.
I get so mad thinking about not only what I've personally been through but all the younger trans folks I interact with on a daily basis, some who even want to die because they can't take another moment being the wrong gender.
Some of these kids are as young as 16 years of age and as you know, there are states where they cannot receive gender affirming care PERIOD to the point their parents could even go to jail for supporting them.
I'm tired of having to go through loops and holes to prove my gender is valid.
I'm tired of teenage kids telling me they want to die and can't see any reason to live because they were denied care.
I'm tired of our trans siblings dying every day because they are forced to be trapped in a body that doesn't fit them.
I'm tired of the negative reception our trans siblings are getting that we are monsters, perverts, and sexual deviants.
I'm tired or laws being passed that treats us like garbage and tells us what we can and can't do with our own bodies.
I'm just tired of it all and something needs to change.
Unless steps are taken and we start eliminating these unnecessary barriers to being the people we know we are, then more and more of us will die. More and more of us will live in resentment. More and more of us will not survive.
To all these insurance companies, to all these legislators, to all the people who refuse to support us, if nothing changes, the blood of our fallen siblings will be on your hands.....
Signed, Rachel Marie Schaeffer