I can’t count how many times I have had the following conversation: "Yes, I’m sexually active. She describes her own experience of discrimination in her Medium post: "This is a population that has a tendency to be pretty alienated from a lot of structures of care," said Breitenstein in an interview with Mashable.ĥ2-year-old Breitenstein, a healthcare operator, investor, and entrepreneur, knows well the need for such spaces. A little more than 200 such health centers exist in the U.S.
Indeed, there's a dearth of safe spaces for queer and especially trans people seeking healthcare.
#Folx health free
Even the queer and trans celebrities Breitenstein spoke to while developing Folx said they prefer the free clinic, because it's the place they feel safest from discrimination. And newer stats show that discrimination still impacts the community: Fifteen percent of overall LGBTQ participants in a 2020 Center for American Progress survey, and 28 percent of transgender participants, postponed or avoided care due to discrimination. Trump rolled back protections in healthcare for queer people just this year. That survey may be six years old, but it's still painfully relevant. That number jumped to 63 percent for individuals living with HIV, and 70 percent of trans and non-binary participants. Fifty-six percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual respondents to a 2014 Lambda Legal survey experienced healthcare discrimination, including healthcare workers refusing to touch them or using excessive precautions being blamed for their health status healthcare providers being physically or verbally abusive and being refused care altogether. This experience is, unfortunately, not unique in the queer and trans community. "It was basically illegal," Breitenstein's friend wrote, "but it was just easier than going to the doctor’s office." In the end, they ended up ordering hormones online from overseas.
"I felt like I had to justify myself over and over again." That experience wasn't great, either: "The doctor kept asking me all kinds of questions about how long I had been living as a man and whether I had attempted suicide," the friend recalled in Breitenstein's Medium post on why she founded Folx. They felt their family doctor wouldn't understand, so they researched online and ended up at a clinic several towns away. Breitenstein, founder of the new queer/trans healthcare provider Folx, wanted to begin transitioning, they didn't know where to go.