Over at Feministing, Katie has a pretty solid analysis of the recent case of a woman in an independent living facility who was unambiguously raped by a male employee. After reporting the rape, to which the perpetrator confessed, the survivor … Continue reading
Presumed Incompetent: Treatment of Persons in Long-Term and In-Patient Psychiatric Care Facilities
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Denying the Patient In Front Of You: Recent Studies of Transgender Patients’ Experiences in the ER Confirms Prior Results about Poor Treatment of Transgender Persons in Clinical Settings
Two studies which have recently hit the press reinforce a problem I have been considering for some time, namely the difficulties which transgender persons face in getting care. Herein, I will give an overview of these difficulties, the new studies, what they reveal about causes of provider’s behavior with respect to trans persons, and some brief recommendations for how providers can do better.
Transgender health advocates Sabrina Suico of the Couples Health Intervention Project and Brionna of the Mariposa project both work with services dedicated to improving the lives of transgender or gender-variant people of color. Image Credit: Aubrie Abeno, via mintpressnews.com
In 2012, I presented a paper at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, “She Walked Out of the Room And Never Came Back…”, in which I discussed the case of a patient who had been denied care by health care personnel while visiting the ER for a broken limb before finally being seen by another provider. The first provider walked out in a huff after the transgender patient’s trans status became clear as the patient’s anatomy was revealed during a diagnostic procedure. After leaving the patient alone, in pain, with no idea whether to leave and go to another facility or wait, another provider came into the room and professionally and compassionately provided the necessary medical care. This, I found, was not uncommon. Approximately 1 in 5 transgender patients have put off preventive medical care due to experiencing, or fear of experiencing, discriminatory behavior directed at the patient by clinical staff. According to some figures, this rises above 1 in 4 (28%), and transgender persons report being denied care across every demographic but worst for transgender women, who were assigned male sex at birth, than for transgender men who were assigned female sex at birth. The fact that transgender persons experience difficulties with access to health care should come as no surprise. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine released a report which addressed the many ways in which poor access to basic medical care for transgender individuals is “due largely to social stigma” and “fear of discrimination in health care settings” as well as lack of employer-provided health insurance due to employment discrimination.
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Sleep Donation
Karen Russell’s new novela “Sleep Donation” uses an interesting sci-fi setting to ask questions about consent, donating biological material, and the rights of neonates. Listen to her interview with Dave Davies on NPR’s Fresh Air
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When Drug Use Isn’t Just About Anti-Drug Laws: Criminalizing Pregnancy Behavior
U.S. states have long had the power to override a pregnant woman’s medical autonomy in specific kinds of instances in order to prevent harm to her fetus. Means for doing so have included court orders to compel C-section or to … Continue reading
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“Dead Babies and Utah’s Carbon Bomb”
Where are ‘pro-lifers’ when you need them?
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From Mansplaining to #NotAllMen: Contending with the violent repercussions of everyday misogyny
By now most of us are familiar with the rough outline of what happened in Santa Barbara on Saturday, May 24, 2014: a deranged young man with a history of violence and hatred towards women killed 6 young women and himself, but not before leaving behind a manifesto declaring that he was going to punish these women for scorning his sexual advances.
In the wake of the tragedy, a new hashtag has appeared on Twitter, #YesAllWomen, in response to the recent phenomenon “Not All Men.” The phrase “Not all men” is a familiar one to most women: it’s the knee-jerk reaction many men have when we try to have conversations about sexism, misogyny, and discrimination and violence against women. “But not all men are like that!” our interlocutors might interject. Continue reading
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Female Genital Mutilation On the Rise
Female genital mutilation, which, according to this NY Times article, has only been illegal in the US since 1996, is still the norm in at least 29 nations, according the UN. Despite the ban on the practice in Western countries … Continue reading
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The Health Benefits of Bullying?
A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that a child’s role in bullying (as either aggressor or victim) can have an impact on adult low-grade inflammation. Being a bully predicted lower levels … Continue reading
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Have Sex Offender Laws Gone Too Far?
A thought-provoking piece at Slate.com. The logic behind the past push for registries rested on what seem like common sense assumptions. Among the most prominent were, first, sex offenders were believed to be at a high risk for reoffending—once a … Continue reading
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“‘Why Didn’t You Just Leave?’: Six Domestic Violence Survivors Explain Why It’s Never That Simple”
To follow-up thematically to the New Yorker article linked below, these stories from HuffPost.
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Recent Anthology on Vulnerability Reviewed
Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy edited by Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers, and Susan Dodds is reviewed by Joan C. Tronto at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Her conclusion: In all, though, this is a remarkably rich and important collection that will … Continue reading
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Rape on College Campuses in the U.S.
In George Cukor’s brilliant 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story, Tracey Lord has divorced the love of her life, a recovering alcoholic who is a rich, Philadelphia blueblood like herself, and she is foolishly about to marry a shallow, social-climbing, “man … Continue reading
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“Why I Spoke Out About One Rape but Stayed Silent About Another”
An excellent piece by Susan J. Brison (Dartmouth) at Time. From the essay: Those who have been raped know that if they speak out, they will be blamed for not doing whatever it is people imagine would have prevented they from being … Continue reading
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“The Rolling Stone Fiasco Is Terrible News for Rape Survivors”
Just in case you have not already heard about this, and are not already completely depressed about the state of world, here’s this account from The Atlantic of Rolling Stone’s retraction of its earlier story detailing the sexual assault of a young woman using … Continue reading
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Medication and Aging
There have been recent reports on the over-medicalization of older individuals in nursing homes and assisted living residences. This problem is not a new one. Just imagine: you are overworked and there is not enough staff to take care of … Continue reading
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Disability, the UK General Election, and what it means for bioethics
It may not have escaped your notice that Britain has just had a general election. The result decides the flavour of the government, probably for the next 5 years. The outcome on 8 May was widely unpredicted: the polls had … Continue reading
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Dwarfism, Chemical Limb Lengthening, and Informed Consent
According to a recent article in the popular press, a California based biotech firm, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, has completed Phase 2 of a clinical trial for a drug that would partially suppress the expression of the Achondroplasia gene in a child’s … Continue reading
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Just Caring for Caregivers in the U.S. Workplace… For Some Workers
On September 8, 2016, Deloitte LLP announced it would grant 16 weeks of paid leave to employees who provide family caregiving not only to new children, but to older children, parents, and spouses. This is an enormous improvement in the U.S. … Continue reading
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The poetry of hands-on healing, and the failure to do so
In 2013, Rafael Campo–then associate professor of medicine at Harvard–won the Hippocrates Open International Prize for Poetry and Medicine. First, let us be grateful that there is such a thing, a thing to draw beauty out of what isn’t always. … Continue reading
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A Shift in the Anti-Abortion Movement: Are feminist woman-centered values gaining ground?
In April, the IJFAB Blog editor provided some information on pro-life feminism in an entry called “Pro-Life Feminism: A Catholic feminist philosopher considers the consequences of punishing women for seeking abortions” mentioning both Sidney Callahan’s famous essay on the subject and … Continue reading
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