A doctor writes: How trans people are excluded from healthcare, putting their lives at risk

When I was a resident doctor of medicine in the emergency department, I went to attend to a patient with a stroke. As I walked up to the patient, I noticed that she was a 60-year-old transwoman (a person who identified as a woman but was registered with a male sex at birth) with diabetes and hypertension.

“She woke in the morning and was unable to move her right-sided upper and lower limbs,” her bystander said to me. Surrounding her were many other trans women who had brought her to seek care.

After explaining that there was a high suspicion of stroke and convincing them to do a CT scan, I walked to the nursing station to enter my notes, where I heard a throwaway comment from a nurse – “Why don't these people just die off instead of coming here and burdening us?” Shocked beyond measure, I just stood there wondering whether this thought would have risen in her mind if the patient who had come with these same complaints was cisgender (a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex registered for them at birth)

I suddenly realised that even after more than a decade in healthcare, this patient was the first and only...

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