excerpted from Feministe by Holly
I was really shocked, confused and appalled when I saw this. Queen Emily was trying to find trans friendly health care services in Louisiana. Believe me, this is not an easy task even in regions that haven’t been economically devastated by disasters and disastrous government. I have risked my own health more than once because it’s so hard to know if walking into a random doctor’s office is going to result in some kind of problem just due to being trans.
It should have been a relief when she found the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic, which is partly operated by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. INCITE! is an amazing organization. We’ve written about them before, a couple times. I have personally been very grateful for the materials they’ve developed about dealing with violence in our communities without getting the police involved, for their huge wealth of resources for women and communities coping with and confronting violent abuse. I don’t really know what I’d do without them. I even helped write one chapter of their book, The Color of Violence — the chapter about the trans POC movement’s struggle here in New York, which was our statement that launched the Trans Day of Action.
That’s why I was so shocked that they are apparently turning trans women away from health care services. I still don’t understand what could be at work here; I certainly don’t WANT to believe that a chapter of INCITE! is deliberately turning a cold shoulder on some women because they’re trans. Their anti-violence materials that I’ve read are close to what I’d call a model for trans-inclusivity. So I can’t figure it out. It should be said that INCITE! chapters are pretty independent; there is a national umbrella organization but I don’t believe it is run in a top-down fashion. But they definitely are influenced by each other, I would think. So it could be a local problem, it could be related to their partner organization or who knows what. But it clearly needs to be addressed, and clearly there needs to be some transparency and community accountability about how these decisions were made.
