This week is the annual citywide celebration of the LGBTQ community, Bangor Pride Festival. On Saturday, we will march in solidarity at the pride parade. Many know Mabel Wadsworth Center for providing abortion care. Less well-known is our tradition of serving the needs of the lesbian community and now the greater LGBTQ community, especially transgender folks.
We were founded, in part, in 1984 to provide a safe space for lesbians to seek health care. Too many lesbians in our community were avoiding health care altogether and feeling stigmatized. In 2014, we began providing gender-affirming hormone therapy to transgender people to fill another important community need. For far too long, transgender people have been marginalized and without access to this care.
A recent survey found in Maine that 43 percent of respondents who saw a health care provider in the past year reported at least one negative experience, including being refused treatment, verbally harassed, and physically or sexually assaulted. Additionally, the survey revealed that 23 percent of respondents did not see a doctor when they needed to out of fear of being mistreated as a transgender person, and 36 percent did not see a doctor when needed because they could not afford it.
This level of discrimination is unacceptable. We march to show our support for LGBTQ folks, especially the transgender community. As health care providers, we owe our clients the highest level of compassion, care and respect. We must all strive to be inclusive and make sure all people feel welcome, regardless of their gender identity or expression.
We are proud to provide this care for people from across Maine and even Canada, but much more must be done to lift the barriers they face. Transportation, cost and isolation from family and friends affect their ability to get health care in their communities. Health care providers must receive cultural competency training. Too often we make assumptions about people and their needs. We must challenge ourselves to have difficult conversations about our privilege and the way we may unintentionally marginalize others. As cisgender women, meaning we are not transgender, we are mindful of this privilege thanks to training and education. All of our struggles are related, and we must center the experiences of those in the trans community and other marginalized groups to achieve health equity as part of a broader progressive movement.
We march to reduce stigma. By standing alongside our trans clients, volunteers and community members in this public event, and in other settings, we seek to normalize their experience within the greater context of those in need of reproductive and sexual health care.
We march to demand change. The issues impacting transgender folks’ lives are complex and require all of us to take action. Trans women in the U.S. are five times more likely to be infected with HIV. Trans women are 4.3 times more at risk of dying by homicide. Nearly three-quarters of all hate crimes committed against the LGBTQ community in 2013 were against transgender people. For all of these statistics, women of color have exponentially higher risk. No one should have to live in fear just for being themselves.
We march to celebrate our allies’ resilience and strength. A year after the tragic attack in Orlando on the LGBTQ community and numerous threats to its safety, health and well-being in recent months, we are inspired by their ability to move forward and proud to march alongside them.
Finally, we march to mark progress. It’s been two years since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Locally, we applaud the city’s commitment to pride and its rainbow painting of a State Street crosswalk. It’s hard to imagine this is the same place where a violent hate crime took place more than 30 years ago, when Charlie Howard, a 23-year old openly gay man, was killed just for being himself.
We hope many will join us Saturday at the parade and attend the festivities to learn more and to support our LGBTQ friends, family, coworkers and neighbors.
Andrea Irwin is executive director of Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor. Jessamy Luthin is a midwife and president of the board of Mabel Wadsworth Center.