A True Account of What is Happening...

I'm a transgender college student, and Ron DeSantis just requested data on trans healthcare from my clinic. I'm worried about what the state will do next.

Story by insider@insider.com (Andy Pham)
March 18, 2023

• I'm a transgender college student at the University of South Florida.
  
  
• During my freshman year, I used the campus health facilities to get hormone-replacement therapy.
  
  
• I felt numb when Ron DeSantis requested data on trans healthcare at campus health facilities.
  
  

On January 11, Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration issued a memo to publicly funded universities in Florida requesting anonymous and aggregate data on trans healthcare at campus health facilities. 

In mid-February, University of South Florida officials indicated they would hand over the information, detailing the number of people who received gender-affirming care through university facilities by age and year.

I am one of those people.  

Read the whole account here...

As both a patient and a premed student, all this weighs heavily on my mind

As a trans person in Florida, I've witnessed our rights get eroded over the past decade. I believe DeSantis and his administration are setting a dangerous precedent.

Ultimately, trans people want the same civil rights that many cisgender people take for granted. We want bodily autonomy, informed consent, and safe treatments for ourselves and our intersex peers.

I've witnessed my trans peers smile when a passing classmate calls out their chosen name, when they run a hand through their new buzz cut, and when they slip into a dress for the first time.

We are healthier and happier as our true selves. Let us live our ordinary lives.

Editor's note: DeSantis addressed his reasoning for requesting university healthcare data at a news conference, according to the Tampa Bay Times. "These are very young people, and you have all kinds of things that go on in those years," DeSantis said in February, according to the news outlet. 

Most of it resolves itself by the time they become adults, but the way to deal with that is to provide whatever counseling is needed, not to hack off their body parts."