Stories
Ahmad
During his initial assessment, the healthcare worker noticed the assigned gender on his Identification Card is female.‘He began to ask intrusive questions to satisfy his curiosity. He asked about my genitalia, my internal reproductive organs. He knew nothing about LGBT, sexuality and gender, did not know trans men existed, and initially thought I was an intersex or a trans woman. He also asked about how I had sex, about my hormones, etc.’
Ahmad is a trans man who went to Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s Psychiatric Department to secure an appointment for suspected depression in late 2018.
During his initial assessment, the healthcare worker noticed the assigned gender on his Identification Card is female. ‘He began to ask intrusive questions to satisfy his curiosity. He asked about my genitalia, my internal reproductive organs. He knew nothing about LGBT, sexuality and gender, did not know trans men existed, and initially thought I was an intersex or a trans woman. He also asked about how I had sex, about my hormones, etc.
‘His body language was also bad. Throughout the whole time, he sat with his posture withdrawing away from me. He also wanted to refer me to a psychiatrist for GID (Gender Identity Disorder), even though it’s already removed from the DSM. In the end, I just snapped at him and we went quiet.
‘This is what we (trans people) mean when we talk about microaggressions against trans people in the healthcare setting. The healthcare worker should have been trained on SOGIE, or at least not to ask all these invasive questions to trans people. The sad thing is, this is an incredibly common problem trans people face. That’s why we don’t want to, or dread to, see a doctor when we fall sick.’
Source: Galen Centre (2019) What it Means to Suffer in Silence Challenges to Mental Health Access among LGBT People