i broke my hand pretty bad yesterday and had to go to the ER to get it x-rayed and splinted. for reference, i had my name and gender legally changed over a year ago, i’ve been on hormones for 3 years, and i am very fortunate to say i pass pretty effectively. the one thing is that my voice isn’t especially passable, so often that’s the giveaway.
anyways, when the doctor first came in, he assumed i was a cis woman and began asking my boyfriend questions about my health, which is obviously not a thing that happens to men. frankly i was okay with this because i was in so much pain and it hurt to think, but after a while my boyfriend basically told him to ask me questions about my body and health. as soon as this man heard my voice, his entire demeanor changed.
literally, the next question he asked was, “do you take any hormones such as estradiol or testosterone blockers?” which is a fair question so i nodded. he then started going off about how the hormones could have led to my bones being more fragile and i should “be careful” not to risk further bodily damage. he then asked if i had the surgery to which i asked him if that were relevant to my breaking my hand, and he gave some reasoning like “i need to know if there are certain medications you can’t take” which maybe that’s a thing? either way i hate when people ask me that question. a few minutes of uncomfortable questions later the x-ray tech (a really nice young woman) called the doctor over and they both came back a minute later and then splinted my hand.
i basically cried the whole ride back and my boyfriend assumed at first it was just pain but really i am so tired of dealing with being talked down to as both a woman and a trans person in a way that’s both complimentary and contradictory of itself. for the record i live in a pretty blue state but this happens quite often