Health Wanted: Trans Day of Visibility
HEALTH WANTED, a weekly radio show and podcast produced in partnership with WABE, brings need-to-know public health headlines and breaks down the science behind trending topics.
The Episode
The topic: Access to gender-affirming health care is a critical and evolving issue that encompasses both medical and societal challenges. This week on Health Wanted, host Laurel Bristow and guest Chase Strangio, JD, discuss health care for transgender people and how current legislation makes it harder to access.
The takeaway: While biological sex is determined at birth, gender is a social construct that can vary across time and society.
- Biological sex is determined at birth as male or female, often by the outward appearance of genitals, though exceptions regarding chromosomal makeup and hormonal levels can occur. Gender is a societal construct shaped by cultural norms. Definitions of gender can differ across societies and over time, which leads to diverse gender identities beyond just male or female.
- Social transitioning is reversible and non-medical. Medical transition may include hormone therapy or surgeries, such as gender-affirming care, which can help a person align their physical body with their gender identity.
- Gender-affirming care, including hormone therapies and surgeries, has proven to significantly improve mental health outcomes for transgender individuals, reducing suicide risk and depression. Studies show that nearly all transgender individuals who undergo gender-affirming treatments are satisfied with their decision, with regret rates for surgeries being under 1%.
- Transgender individuals have existed throughout history, such as historical figures like ancient Sumerian priests and Civil War veterans who lived as the opposite gender. Despite efforts to erase their history, transgender people have always been part of human society, with early gender-affirming care practices dating back to the early 20th century.
The Interview
The guest: Chase Strangio, JD
The key takeaways:
- Framing the topic of transgender health as something open for debate inherently suggests that the value of transgender lives is a topic for discussion and that they can be questioned or rejected. This approach undermines the basic human rights of transgender individuals and creates an environment where their existence and needs are treated as negotiable rather than inherent.
- The political debate over transgender health care availability ties into broader concerns about bodily autonomy in general. Laws restricting access to gender-affirming care limit all individuals’ abilities to make personal health decisions. These restrictions are part of a larger trend of legislation that limits personal freedoms surrounding health for everyone, not just for transgender people.
- Enforcing gender-based laws that restrict access to facilities or opportunities based on gender identity will cause harm not just to transgender individuals, but also to cisgender people who do not conform to traditional gender norms. These laws would also disproportionately affect marginalized groups, such as gender-nonconforming individuals and people of color.
- Societal complacency enables harmful policies to go unchecked. To support transgender individuals in your community, it's important to speak up for what is right. Consider getting involved in local politics or calling state representatives to voice your opposition to discriminatory laws and prevent them from advancing.
The Listener Questions
Did the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say mRNA vaccines cause cancer?
There have been some recent posts on Instagram based on an article that states the “FDA admits that COVID mRNA vaccine causes cancer.” It goes on to say that an FDA study shows that dangerous levels of DNA fragments have been found in the vaccines and that they cause cancer.
The only problem with that is pretty much everything. The study was not done by the FDA, it was done by high school students and published in the Journal of High School Science. The website that posted about this study is a known fake news website for publishing numerous false or misleading articles about everything from vaccines to the global cabal. It’s also not even what the study found.
Basically, high school students did an experiment to see if the DNA that is used to create the RNA that is included in mRNA vaccines could contaminate vaccines in a meaningful quantity.
They found no such meaningful DNA contamination in the FDA-approved Pfizer mRNA vaccines.
They found a higher number of DNA fragments, but they were not using the stringent methods that the FDA requires to test for potential contamination, and even if there are DNAfragments in a vaccine, it doesn’t mean that they can cross into the nucleus to change your DNA. If that were the case, we would be having a much easier time developing gene therapies.
So no, this is not an example of a bombshell admission by the FDA; it’s another case of finding any paper that sort of fits your narrative and then further contorting it to suit your needs.
Are fresh flowers in hospital rooms risky for the health of critically ill patients?
The evidence on the actual risk that flowers pose to patients is mixed. The water in the vase could harbor bacteria, and the flowers themselves may have irritating pollen. Flowers could even have pathogens that are a risk to immunocompromised people. But that’s all a theoretical risk.
This is what’s known as a hazard-based approach, meaning we can’t rule the threat out so we remove the opportunity, rather than a risk-based approach which would be something like knowing that flowers pose a risk so we get rid of them.
It is also possible that flowers in a vase add work to someone’s day. Who is responsible for changing the water when it gets gross? What if it spills? Who will remove dead blooms? Is there anyone on staff who should be obligated to take on those roles to make sure there aren’t disgusting rotted flowers in a room?
Flowers are lovely, but especially in a critical care setting, it’s important staff be able to prioritize patient care. Relatives and loved ones can find alternative ways to show their support that don’t create more work, like cards or signs.
Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:
- Streaming at wabe.org or the WABE app
- Subscribing on Apple or Spotify
- Watching on WABE's YouTube channel
