I can’t imagine how hard it must be to try and organize another kind of health care option wherein the social goals of progressive peoples is inseparable from medical wellness goals. Sometimes it’s hard to get the medical community to see patients as people instead of as problems that need to be fixed or pathologized.

Much love and support for NOWHC and INCITE. I can certainly see why they may fear organizing anything with the blogosphere, but if they do need help I’m on board. This is where medicine needs to go.

hearing, listening, and understanding the anger of marginalized and stomped-upon peoples can sometimes be a critically important teaching about privilege, for privileged people.

I totally understood where you were coming from. Both are important and useful types of spaces.

As far as trans women accessing health care it seems to me (as an outsider) that ensuring women’s services welcome trans women is an absolutely necessary but not sufficient step for expanding access to appropriate care. My own experience with non-lgbt-focused women’s healthcare as a cis lesbian has been mixed, and I’ve gotten significantly better care as a result of the Ontario initiatives that discovered that, guess what, lesban health care involves more than just knowing that not all your female patients need the pill. I suspect the same is even more true for trans women – for example, an inclusive women’s clinic with a tiny percentage of trans women patients is maybe not going to have the same sensitivity in performing cross-gender physical exams (ex. prostate exams on trans women) as a clinic with trans women medical staff and 400 trans clients. So part of the focus in Ontario has been on figuring out how to document the knowledge gained by specialised services and make it accessible to other providers (with the aim that a trans person going to a gp in small town Northern Ontario can be treated just as well as the person with access to an lgbt practice in Toronto.) It looks as if the Philadelphia clinic GallingGalla uses is similarly involved in training others – and US resources are probably way more appropriate to highlight since issues of funding, liability, etc are very different in Canada and the US.

I just wanted to hop in and clarify one fine point. The link to our blog is delivered with the pretext that Nice Feminist has an issue with oppression associated anger. I would really like to state firmly right now that by no means do the creator of Nice Feminist or its contributors (me, for now) discourage protest, organization or even violence if it ever made itself necessary in the name of thwarting an oppressive force. We find inspiration in those people’s willing to take to the streets. Even today as the Westboro clan held their “God Hates Fags” signs outside of my workplace I commented to a co-worker that I would be perfectly willing to go to jail over what I would consider my justified outrage and expressions thereof regarding their protected hate-speech (as a matter of fact, they had disbanded by the time I found out about their presence and still don’t know why they were here).

The reason for the name of the blog has much more to do with creating an environment of security in the feminist blog-o-sphere, which often condescends the under-studied or novice social thinker. We just want people to talk honestly about their experiences so that a greater cumulative sense of understanding can be reached between those who think Feminism is obsolete and those who think we have a long way to go.

We appreciate and are avid readers of Feminste and fully support all outcry against injustice. Thoreau puts it best in Civil Disobedience: “Under a government that imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just [person] is also in prison.”

Thanks for the discussions and we hope that Nice Feminist does not find ill-will in the feminist blog community. Also, consider our current blog a “beta.” Input is welcome, and in the future it will transition to a privately hosted multi-functional website.

If that makes sense.

There are a lot off good programs and information out there to refer them to.
But I think helping NOWHC back on its feet, and helping them on their terms needs to happen first. Trans women do need to talk to them about our care, and I think that is happening. But first things first.

In the meantime, NOWHC is one among many that exclude or mistreat trans women. This problem is much bigger than one clinic, and its important to remember this.