Have you ever had medical providers, doctors, nurses and other support staff, talk about you to others, sometimes even distorting the facts, and or presenting your medical history to others in light of their ignorance and prejudices? I sure have, and this sort of thing has even affected my life in a bad way before.

I was just wondering how common this is, and what you think can be done about it.

Natasha,

In regard to privacy, I demand it. I do not tell docs today my medical history, do not give old docs names. I have one doc that knows my medical history right now that I see adn that is it.

When I moved to CA it was a nightmare finding a doc I could deal with adn that was not an ass to me. In Jersey it was very easy. My wifes family doc has been very cool with me and we get a long fine.

Specialists that have you fill out forms that you have to see for something specific, do not need to know unless it is directly related. I do not allow that label to be posted on my records for the world to see. I have demanded and have had it removed. I get to enraged by them to play there petty games at my expense and by their stupidity.

Now the only problem I do have is that the specialist in CA that I saw for my IS needs is the first doc in years that I allowed to check my testical and check my insides because he is used to IS people. But I do not know who I am going to ever let do that to me out here! I am too scared to trust them and I always feel like a freak, I just cant put myself through it. Shoot to even write about it , think about it is too stressful.

Well anyway, that is all I can say to this....it is the hardest subject of all to deal with, or talk about really. That sure sucks.

Well take care,

Freewritter

Sorry to be so tardy responding to you. I have been a bit busy.

It is awful isn't it? I have found support staff, to be either much better, or far worse, than doctors themselves, and never on a par with them. Often they misunderstand what IS is completely, and breach confidentiality with their wild supposition. Or they assume you are freak and a threat to society. I have caught them spreading misinformation, red handed, and some have said I am a threat to society, right to my face.

At UCSF Hospital in San Francisco. It was written in my chart and entered into the computer record, that I am Intersexed. Such info was available to 'anyone' behind the terminals at varying departments, who "interpreted" that as they saw fit.

I hated going to the lab, the pharmacy or any place else there, because of the weird reactions I sometimes received after they had got my patient card and looked me up in the computer. "Intersex?, hermaphrodite?, what the hell is that?" "We don't do sex changes here you know." Then a big scowl. At first they were really nice, ... "yes ma'am how can I help you". Then the card, and like I just said.

I avoid doctors anyway. Hospitals make me feel panicky, and so do exam rooms at private offices. I hate that long wait for the doctor. I can barely breathe. That always makes me feel like a neurotic child. It is so very embarrassing to me.

The staff at UCSF endocrinology, was really wonderful though.

Big hug Free, = )

Natasha,

I dont know what card you are talking about that says IS or whatever on it? I do not have anything like that. My stuff just says male, all my stuff, adn I never have to show anyone anything at a pharmacy or whatever. Would you tell me what you are talking about so I understand? Is this something that you have to do because of where you were born or something? I know that you can have ID changed in a lot of places.

I did not have to go through any big deals with my ID changes. My Birth Certificate was a real breeze dealing with the German Gov. and my Social Security card was easy too. I just went in and had it changed. My drivers lisense I really dont recall anything, other than going in and saying I corrected my sex and gave a letter showing so, and that was that. My college transcript was actually funny story, because there was this lady that I knew down at the office, but she thought of me as female, then I had the corrections made to my id, had a month of hormones in my system, and I went in and I said, hey there is an error here on my transcripts, it says female and I am male. The SAME lady that I had talked to for like a year when I need transcripts or to pay bills etc. says, well you sure arent female, I need to get that corrected! And then she just changed it, and had no clue who I was as the same person! LOL It was too funny. Not to mention the assumptions made on one sex presentation due to secondary characteristics being more profound or less profound or whatever the case may be. We live in such a wierd world!!

Well listen, I am going to close now. But I am curious to what the deal is with your ID stuff. If you dont mind sharing?

Peace,

Free

Patient ID card. Why is that so hard to figure out? Haven't you ever had an HMO?

It said my name, sex female, and had my patient number on it, etc. With it however they could access my computer medical record apparently.

Now do you understand? All of my paperwork was updated many years ago. It is not something I even think about anymore.

Sometimes I wonder why our "sex" is even an issue, or anything the state needs to know. Why do we need to walk around with a card, saying we are male 'or' female? I think the entire concept of sex is used to control people. Those in charge, have a funny need to label everyone, and know more about us than they should. That is just my opinion though.

In other words.

Gender and sex are devices as they are ascribed value, given moral significance, and through delineating classification become mechanisms of control. As such they limit human expression and freedom to be as we are born, or even also wish to be. We can and must question our own conditioning, the sex and gender paradigm 'as a whole', and undermine that control. Only then can we restore the integrity of our own humanness, by asserting our basic human right to be as we truly are 'individually'.

I no longer go to UCSF Hosp btw.

Hey Natasha,

Ok gotcha, I was just confused. I agree that sex status is about control, hey lets say it as it is, it is about oppression and power, one set of people over another. I totally agree that in an ideal world there would be no need for, and there would be no sex division of any sort. But we do not live in that world and there are people, (a lot of them) that believe the differences are so large between male and female behavior and brains that we are the nutty ones. Of course we are socialized from birth to behave and be very separate too. The separation of Nature verses Nurture is most likely impossible at this point in history. How would we ever isolate down the variables to be able to really observe what is and what is not etc.? And there are those that can only see things from this type of viewing and would always argue the differences as being natural and needed and to remain separate.
I believe it goes back to "functionalism" how sad.

Well talk to you later, gotta head out the door for a meeting.

Peace,
Free

You wrote:
"Ok gotcha, I was just confused. I agree that sex status is about control, hey lets say it as it is, it is about oppression and power, one set of people over another. I totally agree that in an ideal world there would be no need for, and there would be no sex division of any sort."

I completely agree.

You wrote also:
"But we do not live in that world, ..."

Very true. This why I had my paperwork changed years ago. It is a game of arbitrary assumptions. But it is one we must play, as it is prudent to do so where it touches law, and personal safety.

You wrote:
"... and there are people, (a lot of them) that believe the differences are so large between male and female behavior and brains that we are the nutty ones. Of course we are socialized from birth to behave and be very separate too. The separation of Nature verses Nurture is most likely impossible at this point in history. How would we ever isolate down the variables to be able to really observe what is and what is not etc.?"

Yes. I agree it is a confusing mess. One which science, being so completely caught up in cultural assumptions itself, having long ago lost it's unbiased objectivity, is therefore unable to sort out. Instead as it stands. More frequently "science" compounds the problems regarding this, and in the process creates more suffering for us all, both IS and non IS.

Personally I believe differences exist. Some being innately biological. Yet always in concert with sociocultural causes. Said, being presently invisible due to their ubiquitous nature. As you so well pointed out, such are hard to isolate within out present cultural climate therefor.

Yet humans, being at least somewhat unique individually even biologically, and also psychologically therefore also. Once again resulting from ancillary causes both biological and sociological, rearing etc. Cannot therefor conform to a linear, mere binary model. Further, it appears to my eyes. That to attempt to make them do so. Is from the start harmful, an exercise in futility, and an essentially antihuman enterprise.

You wrote:
"And there are those that can only see things from this type of viewing and would always argue the differences as being natural and needed and to remain separate. I believe it goes back to "functionalism" how sad."

Well, that is the nature of bias in all of it forms. Running from mere preference, to prejudice, to rank bigotry. Linchpin to this progression is the rigidity of ones perspective, refusing to consider others perspective. Of course fear thrown in. The catalyst appearing to me to be.
So we have remaining ignorance and presumptions based upon illogical supposed self interest. Always resulting in us v "them". Based as usual upon slight differences, by those failing to acknowledge greater similarities held in common. As is oft case. What matters is not what one sees, but what one does not see.

Heavens sake. I hope I managed to make some sense today. To me it seems clear right now, what I have said. Yet I well know how often I become excessively wordy, and bollix concepts into an obscure mishmash. I hope I didn't do that today, but I notice I am in one of my "suspect states of mind". Is this ADHD Freewriterr?.

This be you:
"Well talk to you later, gotta head out the door for a meeting."

I look forward to your return. I shall now throw in, a very girlish giggle. At no extra charge, for effect. Wait for it. Here it comes. ---> [g] There you have it, gender as performance. In all of it's inane glory. TA DA!

Oh what the hell. Here, have a hair flip too. [hair flip]

=)

Hugs,

Natasha,

I have returned, had dinner and waiting on wife to get back from the store with cigs and milk.

I must say that I think it is often rather frustrating to realize that no matter how hard we attempt to escape, at least in part, from what society has thrown onto us, such as the whole concept of sexes, that we still fall pityfully into the social games. We have to, because no real choice is left to us. Otherwise we would not be demanded to have such a label tossed upon us, you know?

The thing for me, and it is truly inner conflicting to be honest, is that I like being a man, seen as a man, heard as a man, and labeled as a man, because it is for the largest degree of who I am. BUT it is not ALL that I am, cause I am also just me, an individual.

Interestingly enough, I have become more at peace with the other parts of me over the past few monthes for real. I would like to acclaim to having always had that peace, but that is not in the least true! :o

Well what can I say, I am coming along with the idea of accepting myself from within, not just with knowledge from my intellectual self that already does know things, that my stomach does not want to registor.

now as for the ADHD thing, it is not limited to that, but it can be a part of that. Wordy is what we are for sure! LOL My mind never stops, and I type fast so I get a lot out as a lonnnngggg flow! :D

I am playing with the little character faces tonight, they are so expressive aren't they? :p

Well as for the giggle and toss of hair over shoulders,...I am as bad as the next guy there, I like to see feminine expression, and I could not begin to tell you why, but I do like it. Ok, now the load girlish giggles, they gripe my nerves, but the little ones, just like, well half of one, they are cool by me. And hair tossing, depends on if she is walking towards me or away!


Hey talk to you later ok? I am heading for the bed and the remote, for a evening of numb brain time! Take care!

Free

Hey I'm new here so that is why I am repsonding now to this post off over two months ago.

I'm facing some of these same problems now and not sure what to do. When I had my first consultation with this new doctor, she assured me my records would be kep confidential and that if I wanted she would make my file closed. I told her that is what I wanted. So I have been under the assumption that only her and her nurse that is also IS-friendly would be only ones allowed to see my files.

During one of the visits, when her personal nurse was not working another nurse started going through my charts. I was there simply to discuss results of a thyroid test which I told the nurse and that my file was closed. That nurse said yes all our files are kept confidential and your file is closed like all the others, but I have the right to go through it as I work here. I told her again I was here only to go over test results & discuss possible thyroid treatments. She flipped through all my records, reading, then suddenly got a funny look on her face. So I feel she did see where it said hermaphrodite. Another time I called up this same office and asked if the dr's personal nurse could call me back. The receptionist said hold on let me look through your chart. I said sorry my file is closed to all but the doc & her personal nurse. She responded well how the Hell do you expect us to help you if we can't see your chart? I could hear her flipping through papers.

I think I need to tell my doc what has been going on, now that they have me scheduled for a hour long appt next week. Usually she barely has time to speak with me about medical issues and I haven't had a chance to bring up the privacy issue again. I feel I need to talk with her about it again because I am getting all mad & pissed at the treatment the rest of her staff is giving me.

Angela