Sunday, December 23, 2007

Supporting our Transgender Brothers and Sisters

Nobody has to tell a transgender person going through transition the financial burden it carries. The clothes make up, personal effects, hair removal and not to mention the medical and psychological needs, most of which is not covered by insurance. As many of us transition, many of us loose our jobs or fail to get the promotions we deserve. The psychological issues we deal with often have a devastating effect effecting on our job performance and or ability to hold a job. Sadly many end up homeless or turn to drugs and prostitution just to survive. Sadly many end up in jail or prison, with sexually transmitted diseases, drug habits and homeless.

Our federal and many of our state governments will not pass the necessary anti-discrimination legislation we need to protect us and our families. Many social service agencies do little or nothing to help us. Many insurance companies deny our claims because they fail to see this as a genuine medical issue. Where can we turn for help?

One thing some of us can do is to start a website. There are many ways in which we can monetize our websites and this is one way in which we can earn a living and support ourselves. I have started a website http://www.tglynnsplace.com/ to help support myself and hopefully one day help me pay for my eventual surgery. I have also included a section build your own website to help my other transgender brothers and sisters. I am committed to helping my transgender brothers and sisters. If there is anything I can do to help my transgender brothers and sisters build, monetize or promote their websites, please feel free to email me anytime and I will do my best to help you.

The thing to remember is we need to support our own. If you see a product or service on a transgender website you can use please do your best to support that website. Help us promote our websites, one way we can do this is to email the links to others whom the website may be of interest. The gays and lesbians have been doing this for years and this has helped them get to where they are today and we need to do the same.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Transgender - Insurance Issues

I moved into the New York Capital District several months ago. One of my attractions to the area was the enormous amount of transgender resources available to me in this area. When I got here, to my amazement, I could find no one whom could refer me to a trans friendly primary care physician. I did find many therapists that do work with the transgendered community, however after going down the list and contacting each one of them, I found only one that took my insurance, and she wasn't accepting new patients, and most did not accept any insurance at all. I am yet to find a surgeon that performs GID related surgeries whom accepts any type of insurance coverage. Now I have one of the most popular insurance plans in the area and have the necessary coverage for most of my needs.
If you have lots of money you can buy all the medical and psychological services you need. The problem is many of us we are just struggling to survive due to loosing our jobs or unable to find suitable employment due to discrimination and psychological issues we are dealing with. This makes it almost impossible for many of us to get the services we need most, causing our lives to spiral further downwards.
It is common knowledge that the best person to help you with an issue is a person who has gone through that same issue. Most of the therapists that deal with GID (gender identity disorder) are part of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender) community and either are transgender themselves or are in close contact with the transgender community. In my eyes that kinda makes them one of us. We are in a time where we are all fighting for our very basic human rights and for a little basic respect and dignity. We all need to be working together in the fight for our basic rights and needs, but also in utilizing all that has been given us.
While we are fighting to get insurance companies to insure us, our therapists are dropping the very companies we are getting to cover us. I understand the fact that they do have their issues with the insurance companies, but as a part of our community at large I feel they could do much more to support us. Maybe we need to re-direct some of our attention towards our care providers.


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