Expired A Decolonized and Queer-Normative Framework for Gender Affirming Letter Writing for Non-Medical Providers

This workshop will discuss the impacts of white-supremacy and cis-normativity within the medical complex and how these forces, both blatantly and unconsciously, create barriers and gate-keeping behavior within otherwise well-meaning professionals. We’ll seek to explore how our own understandings of white-centered, westernized medical systems have impacted our abilities to prioritize Transgender and Gender Non-Binary (TGNB), especially BIPoC, individuals who seek to access medical care to affirm gender, and shift our focus to a queer-normative model of assessment. By the conclusion of this workshop, participants will have tools for queer-centered assessment and letter writing for gender-affirming care.

Learning Objectives:

• To understand how white-supremacist and cisgender-centric systems in medicine impact participants’ own personal biases for TGNB’s access to care
• To examine how participants’ own biases are active barriers and gate-keeping behavior when supporting TGNB (specifically POC) individuals accessing medically affirming care
• To leave with a queer-normative visit structure when writing letters for TGNB health access, and to leave with a template for letters for gender-affirming care

Presenter:

Renée Reopell (they/ them), LCSW is a gender-free Nu Yorican advocating for intentional mental resilience and well-being for TGNB folx. Renée received their master’s in social work at New York University, and has been privileged to support young adults at Hetrick Martin Institute, Trinity Place Shelter, and Montefiore Hospital’s first LGBTQ youth program, the Umbrella Program, serving youth & families through the Adolescent AIDS Program. Currently, Renée is a mental health therapist at the Oval Center and the Adult AIDS Clinic at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, and a group clinician at the Ackerman Institute’s Gender and Families Project. They also work in private practice from a health equity framework.

← Return to Workshops