Why Is It So Hard to Find LGBTQ+ Allied Healthcare Professionals in America?
THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO
CALEB CHURCH
The Lack of Data to Assess LGBTQ+ Care Outcomes Makes The Future of Healthcare Look Dim.
We’re all out here. It’s time to come out too, doc.
6 MINS READ TIME
Do better.
Those are the two words I would use to describe my experience finding a doctor after falling off the insurance I had as a child. Today, I am lucky that my career and universe-given talents have carried me with enough gusto to be a citizen with a first class healthcare policy. I’m lucky to have found a doctor that treats me as a first class citizen. I am lucky for the community that has brought me here.
I am lucky that today I share no embarrassment or shame regardless of where I receive care.
So many do not receive help because of shame or embarrassment. Do not be who I was.
Hell, it’s 2021. When I went to look for a doctor, I didn’t think that even our modern god, Google could fail me. Perhaps that’s the ignorance I bore due to living in my own bubble of privilege. But after going so long without seeing a doctor at all, the stories I've heard about the “nightmare” of finding LGBTQ+ allied healthcare began to make sense to me; to find a doctor who was aware and knowledgeable about experiences and challenges unique to me.
Photo: Grant Legan
Given the generalized anxiety that’s built into our existence out of self preservation, when any one of us goes to a doctor it’s likely that something is already wrong. When you compound that with the inability to locate an allied provider with any sort of ease, and the urgency of whatever it is you’re dealing with that pushed you far enough to even consider a doctor's visit, you begin to have a slight understanding of what kind of hopeless feelings can ensue.
So I searched: Once, twice, thrice, and four times. Nothing.
When I did find something, I would be lucky if they took my insurance… They didn’t.
At the time I only had medicaid, and as a freelancer in New York City, that was already an achievement. But nonetheless, I searched again. I searched desperately because the accessibility of care made me imagine my situation in its worst case. I imagined that I’d surely contracted a terminal illness and I would die. I remember crying that evening on the couch, and all night. I remember sitting on the far corner of the sofa so that no one could see that I wasn’t just looking for “a” doctor, but a doctor who wouldn’t pose the threat of harm.
I searched for a doctor who wouldn’t look at me crazy, or assume any certain level or promiscuity. A doctor who would look at me and instead see the many decorations of my career, the fact that I moved to New York and made it in spite of all I left behind, and the fact that I had the balls to walk in the front door of their practice and offer them the privilege of my patronage.
I went to an urgent care center who yet again told me that I would require the attention of an internist or PCP, and prescribed me an antibiotic that didn’t work.
At the end of it all, I didn’t receive care.
Photo: Grant Legan
The factors to the equation weren’t just availability of care of course, but also price. What shook me most, though, was when I found out the statistics of those who suffered because they too were either too afraid to receive care, or had been denied it. I was sure I would be another number. While pricing was definitely a factor, the availability of LGBTQ+ affirming care is a much larger problem. With the increase of care providers, inevitably less expensive options will become available.
There was one option in New York. There was, of course, The Center.
However, if you let your guard down long enough, you may just feel that same weight of shame society heaps upon our shoulders when you realize that every doctor may not even treat you. Yes, refusal of care is possible, and usually is legal under the context of religious freedom.
Luckily for me, my symptoms subsided. I still have no idea what ailed me or rather I need to worry that I may fall ill again in the future.
But then the big question hit me: Why is it so hard to find LGBTQ+ allied healthcare professionals in America?
With all of the countless parades, floats, tv commercials, and even celebrity endorsements a community receives, how is it possible that when you google for a gay friendly doctor, you’re met with an orchestra of metaphorical crickets?
There is no one simple answer, but I did find a few reasons, and there’s one in particular I’d like to shed light on:
I was surprised to find is that they’re scared, too
Doctors that is. Through my own research about how human rights movements have taken root, I’ve realized that it has always been rooted in battling a singular fear. Not the fear of accepting something new, but the fear of being seen in as or in support of LGBTQ+ members, being discriminated against, and the fear of even losing one’s career. Then I came along this story about one doctor's winding journey to even attain the privilege of practicing as a doctor; it all made sense.
I never would have believed it if I was told that information specific to the gay experience is only learned by a few doctors who elect an option course titled “other populations.” I really wouldn’t have believed it if I was told students were denied entry to medical school for being identified as part of the community themselves.
Thankfully for the sake of hope, the article makes mention that times are changing.
The lack of data to assess LGBTQ+ care outcomes makes the future of healthcare look dim.
You may find it staggering to believe that even today, only 16 percent of LGBTQ+ patients choose to inform their doctor of their sexual orientation.
It’s important for doctors to “come out” with their support, too.
That’s why I’m writing: to ask that more doctors become allied regardless of the fears that they have. Why? Because strength comes in numbers, and we need more numbers. Making yourself known isn’t enough.
It’s time we made healthcare a human right regardless of identity.
We’re all out here. It’s time to come out too, doc.