Clinical Eligibility Screener

Welcome. Why are you here today?

...anything described or associated with illness falls under the purview of the medical profession, which, over time, becomes the dominant authority over how bodies should behaviorally, socially, and psychologically function. Medicine has increasingly become a powerful agent in establishing and sustaining cultural norms by eliminating or normalizing what many in society deem aberrant behavior...

—Jodie M. Dewey and Melissa M. Gesbeck, p. 44

Dewey, J. M., & Gesbeck, M. M. (2017). (Dys)Functional diagnosing: Mental health diagnosis, medicalization, and the making of transgender patients. Humanity & Society, 41(1), 37–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160597615604651

What is your gender identity?

By placing trans experience within a medical model situated within contemporary health care, gender-affirming intervention becomes contingent on adherence to standardized symptoms rather than personal identification of gender. The essentialist, symptom-based model of trans experience creates the trope of trans people being born in the wrong body [...] and deters any alternative narrative of gender identity as fluid, emergent, processual, or constituted by social norms and influence...

—Austin H. Johnson, p. 5

Johnson, A. H. (2016). Transnormativity: A new concept and its validation through documentary film about transgender men. Sociological Inquiry, 86(4), 465–491. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12127

At what age did you first realise your gender was 'incorrect'?

So now, faced with these questions, how do I decide whether to look back on my life through the tranny childhood lens, tell the stories about being a boy for Halloween, not playing with dolls? What is the cost of participation in this selective recitation? What is the cost of not participating?

—Dean Spade, p. 320

Spade, D. (2013). Mutilating Gender. In S. Stryker & S. Whittle (Eds.), The Transgender Studies Reader (pp. 317–332). London: Routledge.

Describe your 'Standard of Care' transition goals.

Lily went on to explain that she was dissatisfied with the effect that hormones had on her sex drive but felt unable to discuss a change in prescription with her doctor, as "trans women are supposed to not like their genitals" so should not want to use them for sex. Lily noted that trans women are "supposed to kind of have one or the other" – that is, trans women are expected to sacrifice either their sex life or their hormone therapy.

—Gloria Fraser, Anita Brady, and Marc S. Wilson, p. 8

Fraser, G., Brady, A., & Wilson, M. S. (2021). "What if I'm not trans enough? What if I'm not man enough?": Transgender young adults' experiences of gender-affirming healthcare readiness assessments in Aotearoa New Zealand. International Journal of Transgender Health, 22(4), 454–467. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2021.1933669

Are you prepared to centre your baby above your own physical autonomy?

In such normative imaginaries, the gestating person and baby/child are set in oppositional positions and seen as separate entities with competing interests. Furthermore, the complex embodied feelings, challenges, needs, and emotional complexities of reproductive subjectivity are denied, diminished, and unrecognised. Reproduction, pregnancy, and birthing are framed as biological events requiring medical intervention; the living, enfleshed, tactile, intermeshed, and sensory experiences and perspectives of reproductive subjects are ignored, denied, and/or devalued.

—Rachelle Chadwick, p. 7

Chadwick, R. (2021). Breaking the frame: Obstetric violence and epistemic rupture. Agenda, 35(3), 104–115. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2021.1958554

List all items consumed in the last 24 hours (including medication)

Alexander counters the fact that they acquiesced to medication by stating they had otherwise attempted to 'keep it as natural as possible.' Yet, unmedicated hyperemesis can lead to weight loss, dehydration, and nutritional imbalances, endangering the lives of both mother and foetus. To let such symptoms go unchecked implies a pregnant woman is being a bad patient and a bad mother, while taking medication linked to the collective memory, if no longer in fact, with birth defects also seems to require a defence.

—Kate Cregan, p. 51

Cregan, K (2018). Embodying Pregnancy and Self-Surveillance. In R. Kokanović et al. (Eds.), Paths to Parenthood (pp. 45-67). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0143-8_3

How do you plan to manage your pain during labour?

Note: Your personal narrative of pain will be archived as 'hysterical' or 'standard' depending on practitioner mood.

This dualism of the "good" mom versus the "bad" mom model is also present when courts describe women who insist on a particular birthing method as stubborn, difficult patients. Ultimately, this translates to an overall distrust of the woman's agency to control her own body and to make decisions for herself and the fetus that she is carrying.

—Maria T.R. Borges, p. 854

Borges, M. T. R. (2018). A Violent Birth: Reframing Coerced Procedures during Childbirth as Obstetric Violence. Duke Law Journal, 67(4), 827–862.

Do you consent to genital normalisation surgery on your infant?

For at least two intersex conditions—clitoromegaly (large clitoris) and micropenis (small penis)—both the diagnosis of the condition and the ultimate result of the surgery are based on subjective notions of what doctors, parents, and society believe to be "normal-looking" genitals. The benefits of genital-normalizing surgery have yet to be documented. The physically and psycho-logically harmful effects have been all but ignored despite the outraged cries of the procedures' victims.

—Kishka-Kamari Ford, p. 469

Ford, K.-K. (2001). “First, Do No Harm”: The Fiction of Legal Parental Consent to Genital-Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants. Yale Law & Policy Review, 19(2), 469–488.

Thank you for your submission. Please wait for a medical professional to determine your rights to your body.

First, both campaigns against medical care [bans on abortion and bans on gender-affirming care] point to protection of patients from future regret as a legitimate state interest justifying restrictions on providing medical care. Second, both rely on alleged concerns about regret to redefine the legal meaning of "informed consent" and make it easier for potential future plaintiffs to prevail in civil suits against providers of medical care. In doing so, both treat the emotion of regret as a distinct injury that may give rise to a range of legal rights and liabilities. The Article reveals how conservative politicians and lawmakers use "regret" as a disciplinary tool to promote traditional family values, especially involving natalism and "biological" sex difference.

—Noa Ben-Asher & Margot J. Pollans, p. 1

Ben-Asher, N., & Pollans, M. J. (2024). Gender Regrets: Banning Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care. Utah Law Review, 2024(4), 763–806.

This website was created for a Creative Gender Inquiry project for a 200-level university course. It wasn't intended to be shared publicly, but if you've found your way here, why not donate to my top surgery fund?

CLINICAL ELIGIBILITY SCREENER