Action for Trans Health supports the Women’s Strike on the 8th March, coinciding with International Women’s Day. #WomenStrike2018
There is no debate about the fact that trans women are women and as women we face numerous, unique obstacles in this patriarchal, cisnormative society in order to survive. As a group campaigning for democratic trans health care, our own work has showcased the ways in which trans women and trans feminine people are dehumanised and humiliated in all forms of healthcare in the NHS and private healthcare. From transmisogynist GPs and nurses, to relying on outdated, undemocratic forms of healthcare in the forms of gender identity clinics (GICs) which have a history of medical gatekeeping and enforcing misogynist ideals on us in order for us to gain what is essential and life-saving medicines and surgeries. Trans women also face disproportionately higher levels of domestic violence, unemployment and homelessness which is only added by the pathologising constraints put on us as women by transmisogynist doctors and psychiatrists to ‘prove’ ourselves.
Action for Trans Health is aware of the misogynist histories in medicine and psychiatry and shows solidarity to all women fighting for their own rights of bodily autonomy within a patriarchal healthcare system. As trans women and trans feminine people, our value and expertise in helping improve trans healthcare is not commonly compensated for by the NHS or other forms of healthcare services. We are women who are still relied upon despite all of the work we do as carers and workers engaging in unpaid, unrecognised and uncompensated forms of socially reproductive labour and as women we will also be on strike on the 8th March.
#WeStrike