U.S. Trans Survey
August 19, 2015 7:21 AM   Subscribe

The U.S. Trans Survey, currently being conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, "will give researchers, policymakers, and advocates the ability to see the experiences of trans people over time, how things are changing, and what can be done to improve the lives of trans people."
posted by roomthreeseventeen (16 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is a good project. I wonder how well it will do at estimating population though.
posted by k8t at 7:50 AM on August 19, 2015


odinsdream, I know a bunch of the folks involved. May I share your comments (without your username)?
posted by anya32 at 9:05 AM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


As to the importance of the survey, I am just reading this article by someone who appears to be a Mefite.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:25 AM on August 19, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is ironically the worst when dealing with health care providers.

A dear friend of mine just had his hysterectomy, and it was a terrible experience from beginning to end; even though he is a dude and he has a dude's name and he is marked as a dude on his medical records (the state changes went through awhile ago), he was consistently misgendered in all kinds of ways (nurse: "Did you bring some panties with you to go under your gown?" My friend: "...")

I wish I knew a single trans person who could say "I love my doctor, they're great, they respected me as I am", but I don't. (Chest surgeon was reportedly 'not bad').
posted by joycehealy at 9:49 AM on August 19, 2015


(nurse: "Did you bring some panties with you to go under your gown?" My friend: "...")

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHhhhhhhhh just reading that is like nails on a chalkboard.

I haven't started the survey yet but I'm guessing my experience will be similar to odinsdream's. I have my first endocrinologist appointment on Monday! So nothing has really "happened" yet and I don't have much to report. But I'm still here!
posted by desjardins at 11:15 AM on August 19, 2015 [5 favorites]


odinsdream, your comments have been sent to the survey developers.
posted by anya32 at 11:57 AM on August 19, 2015


anya32, there's also a long thread on r/asktransgender on reddit with criticisms.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:16 PM on August 19, 2015


roomthreeseventeen, i'm not a huge online person - do you mind sharing the link?
posted by anya32 at 12:22 PM on August 19, 2015


Here's the link.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:30 PM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just took it; for whatever reason, I had difficulty getting the survey pages to load, so it took me 3 hours.

On every third page or so, I had wished there was a place to give qualifiers to my answers. I ended up filling up the last optional comment box with a lot of text, but I forgot stuff since it took me a long time to get through.

It's very hard to give a binary answer to "Did ___ happen because you were trans?" Well, maybe!

I get that it's a long survey though and having n-thousand filled n answers is hard to sort through.
posted by you could feel the sky at 12:55 PM on August 19, 2015


And it occurs to me that my comment could have been totally triggering and I wasn't even thinking. Sorry, desjardins.
posted by joycehealy at 1:57 PM on August 19, 2015


I got three or four pages into the survey and now the site seems to be down. :(
posted by aparrish at 2:24 PM on August 19, 2015


As to the importance of the survey, I am just reading this article by someone who appears to be a Mefite.

That is MeFi's own elephantsvanish! I'll let her know that her piece made it here, she'll be thrilled. (I'd post it as an FPP myself, but as much as I think it deserves a place I'm a little too close to the author for that to be kosher.)
posted by ActionPopulated at 2:28 PM on August 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


Oh wow, elephantsvanish's piece is gorgeous, and sad, and such a tribute to Aubrey.
posted by Deoridhe at 4:41 PM on August 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm not clear what I'm supposed to do if the site goes down mid-survey. Are they getting partial answers? What happens if someone tries to retake it later (which is my intent)? How do they weed out duplicates?
posted by desjardins at 7:56 PM on August 19, 2015


I wish I knew a single trans person who could say "I love my doctor, they're great, they respected me as I am"

Here goes: I love my doctor, they're great, they respected me as I am!

I spent months agonizing, searching, waiting for the right doctor, and I'm glad I did, because I've had a great experience with Care Resource here in Miami. They don't prescribe hormones on informed consent, but getting a letter from my therapist was a piece of cake. While they have to use the name that my insurance provider has on file, they also track my actual name in my chart and use it exclusively when communicating with me. My doctor was respectful and helpful, and even helped me choose the best delivery method for my needs and budget. (She talked about the benefits of the patch, but warned me that it's a lot more expensive – pills are fine, thanks!) Getting a properly-worded letter for gender marker changes took a few revisions, which was frustrating; knowing what I know now, I would recommend you just write the letter yourself, and be sure to stress that the letterhead needs to contain the address and telephone number.

I had my last appointment with her on Tuesday, and she gave me a big hug on the way out. She also recommended Callen-Lorde in NYC for after our move and told me to call her if I have trouble transferring my refills.

On the other hand, I've also had good luck with my lawyer, my judge (that, granted, my lawyer hand-picked for me), most of the bureaucrats and customer service folk I've interacted with, HR, my coworkers, the majority of my friends, my in-laws, and my extended family. (My parents and siblings have been ... well, my therapist hears a lot about them.)

So at the end of the survey, I was tempted to write about some things I thought the survey didn't cover very well or at all: the struggle to be truly accepted by friends and family; my negative interactions with the LGBT community; the endless lonely hours of paperwork and hair removal and voice practice; only having ID that doesn't match my presentation; seeing an all-out assault against the very concept of my identity in the comments section, backed up by hundreds or thousands of raised blue thumbs. But honestly, it seems like the focus of the survey is on incidents of harassment and violence, rather than the more benign difficulties inherent to being trans. And that's fine; a survey should have a focus, and I ultimately decided to skip the free-form question. As a white, middle-class woman with enough passing privilege that I feel guilt over it, (and, I think, uncommonly lucky on top of all that) I'm below their radar. I just feel like I didn't contribute very much with my answers.
posted by WCWedin at 10:09 AM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


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