Photo: Claire Rhee, Stanford Med student
The doctors of the future have spoken: “We will not tolerate any course of action that harms our community.”
Stanford University’s chapter of Medical Student Pride Alliance organized a fundraiser and rally following last week’s #WontBeErased movement. In a gesture to affirm intersex, transgender, and gender expansive people, the group gathered to raise funds for interACT and TGI Justice Project, a California-based organization supporting and centering incarcerated transgender and intersex women of color.
This April I had the honor of speaking to Stanford’s Queer Health and Medicine cohort as an interACT Youth member. Young LGBTQIA+ doctors are quick to understand the human rights abuses faced by intersex people, and stunned to hear of medical practices, such as non-consensual, cosmetic infant clitoral reduction surgeries and phalloplasties, that many old-guard practitioners still won’t denounce.
I spoke with young pre-meds and genetic counselors alike on the challenges faced legally, politically, and socially by intersex youth. Many left the session with new awareness and a commitment to change practice in their fields. And so they did.
“People who had taken Queer Health and Medicine told me that your session is what got them educated on intersex advocacy, and motivated them to act,” said Marija Kamceva, an MD Candidate at Stanford and the student who coordinated interACT’s 2018 guest lecture.
Stanford doctors are the future of LGBTQIA+ affirming care, and I am filled with hope and gratitude.
The deck from interACT’s Stanford presentation is available free for allies in a modified version via our #4intersex education toolkit, along with a master suite of other educational resources.
By Hans Lindahl
Communications Director
interACT Youth Member
