last night i was having a panic attack and medical discomfort. I Decided better to reach out not knowing my condition and knowing i have some chronic health issues .
The call started off fine but with in seconds of telling the operator at 911 im in distress and would like medical help and my location and address the awkward and inappropriate question was asked.
Why do this?
- to improve emergency and urgent care for other Gender non conforming and non binary people and patients.
- to bring awareness to an injustice and question what is protected medical information and why does title nine and the no fear act not protect patients and persons who do not identify as Male or Female.
the 911 operator informed me that its standard operating procedure and asked me are you a male or a female. I was very dismayed and upset. I went silent. I do nto have a gender marker. or sex marker . I have no sex listed any longer on my birth certificate. I feel i am both and neither. I know this is a transcripted and recorded call. this is part of what i was calling for and about. I was having a mental health and physical crisis. The responders apparently don’t have the tools or procedures to handle this kind of Medical emergency. .
i understand their usual cis gender call operators can’t understand how this is not a medical question.
- I am blogging publicly about this problem because I feel the world needs to read and know how this affects me.
- I am hopeful that hospital administration and nurses doctors and training staff read this as well as first responders.
- It is my belief that they feel the pandemic emergency trumps my legal rights to anonymity because they claim gender is a medical fact that wholy affects their decisions and navigates their medical actions. I feel intimidated and like this is an irrelevant and loaded question that leaves me vulnerable to mal
I disagree with their assertion and if i had answered them my answer would be that i indeed have no sex markers or Gender marker.
I did not know how to handle this situation so I decided to hang up. I ignored their return call and I left my apartment because i do not understand how the bias of belief in a binary gender marker medical identification marker affects me and my healthcare other than negatively.
I talked to a mental health crisis provider today about last nights event. I called them at 6:25 in the morning AM. I am fearful about the repercussions of abandoning my call for help last night will result in. I also can
t get my head around why and what i was being asked. I don;t know if i fully understand the question. AM i being asked my biological assignment? my sex at birth designation? My gender identity that does not match my assigned sex at birth? or am i being asked as a courtesy to identify my gender identity ? I hate this question and it is one i have struggled with being asked all my life. Even though i have a valid answer about my government id. gender marker. I am all to aware that Government and medical institutions conflate sex and gender as being the same thing which I know they are not. I am provided no comfort or affirmation that my information will be received with any support or verification. I have even experienced being told i failed to fully identify and verify my identity at the pharmacy before. This is what i experience because My sex and gender identity does not conform with the Systems of Binary sex identification.
my intersex journey, United states of America 