System Failure, Part II

- by Stacey Prince

A few months ago in a blog article entitled System Failure I wrote about some of the challenges facing transgender individuals, including transphobia and lack of access to appropriate services. I laid out how invalidation and discrimination experienced at the micro (family), meso (jobs, school) and macro levels (laws, lending institutions, insurance companies) contribute significantly to their emotional distress. A very concrete example of this is the incredible inaccessibility of gender reassignment surgery, which is explicitly excluded by many health insurance companies, yet prohibitively expensive to pay for out of pocket. Yet for many transgender clients, surgery and other gender confirming procedures are in my mind as medically necessary as is bypass surgery for an individual with severe heart disease, or insulin for a diabetic.

What I really want to focus on here is what TJP can do about it. What can we, as an organization espousing to integrate healing and liberation, contribute to the solution? How can we make this better? Do we work to reform existing systems ("sensitivity trainings" for hospitals and police officers, teaching clinical psychology graduate students and psychiatry residents how to work affirmatively with transgender clients, getting insurance to pay for SRS)? Instead of reform, do we work toward transformation, and what would transformation look like in this case--for example, can we envision and work toward a world in which regardless of their assigned-at-birth gender, pre- or post-operative status, or anything else, individuals can self-determine their gender identity, that identity does not have to fit within our convenient male/female binary, and it can change over time? In a world where that binary, and transphobia, do not exist, would gender reassignment surgery be readily available as a medically necessary procedure--or in some cases, would it not be necessary at all? Do we go for advocacy (the slow, tedious process of systemic change, whereby perhaps laws governing surgery, bullying, and discrimination are altered) or activism (sit-ins and demonstrations outside of insurance companies who deny services)?

To read entire article click here.

Supporting Macro Level Change

- by Stacey Prince

One aspect of the intersections between healing and social justice that has been less explored thus far in TJP is healers supporting or opposing legislative change. Yet we can have a significant impact at this macro, systemic level of change, for example by testifying regarding the impact of particular bills on our clients, citing relevant empirical research, and using our relational skills to discuss critical social issues with our friends and colleagues. Recently along with representatives from several other states I was interviewed by a reporter from the APA Monitor, the monthly journal of the American Psychological Association, on the involvement of state psychological associations in supporting or opposing relevant LGBT rights legislation. Although the article focuses on LGBT issues (domestic partnership, adoption, anti-discrimination laws, etc.) the strategies suggested can be used by mental health professionals who want to get involved in the legislative process regarding a wide range of social justice and public policy issues.

Click here to read the APA Monitor article.