So Iâm a phlebotomist. And sometimes, I work at a site that is directly adjacent to an endocrinologist. Which means I see and take blood from a lot of folks that are trans, or nonbinary, or gender nonconforming.
Do you have any fucking idea how easy it is, in customer-service speak, to respect someoneâs gender?
I mean, Iâve had super awkward situations where I have to say things like âIâm sorry, that name isnât coming up in our system. Is there another nameâŠâ And without fail they provide their deadname and I plug it in and I say âOk, that came up, do you want me to fix that in our system?â And they say âYesâ and then I ADD IT AS A SYNOMYMOUS NAME. Same as I would for someone recently married or divorced. The end.
I have never experienced a situation in which I have felt motivated to ask someoneâs pronouns.
I have had situations in which I have thought to myself âI have no idea if this person is âsirâ or âma'amâ and instead have gone âNext patient please?â or âI can help whoâs nextâ or âI can help you nowâ while looking directly at them.
I have had situations where Iâve gone âIâm like 90% certain that Iâve been given a record with this personâs deadname because this name does not match at all the gender presentation of the person Iâm looking atâ And I say âOk, can you spell your last name for me? Ok, spell your first name? And your date of birth?â
and then I quietly write âpreferred name [the name they just spelled] on the top of thier record.
THIS IS NOT HARD.
And if this is not hard for me, as a person working in medicine who has to make certain that the person Iâm talking to is the same person on the medical record that Iâm looking up, how much easier must it be for, say, a barista who doesnât give half a fuck who you are? Iâve BEEN a barista in the past. If a Barista is asking your pronouns, that person is an asshole.
This just gave me so much hope, thank you.
