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Stewart ‘Sobered And Saddened’ at County’s Lack of Adequate Transgender Health Care

A roundtable on the need for transgender health resources in Montgomery County centered on ways to improve what was referred to as “a desert” of options.

According to panelists during the Saturday roundtable, a county survey showed that many people who are transgender travel to Baltimore or Washington, D.C. for medical services. They often don’t receive normal health care and screenings, because so many doctors either don’t want to deal with them or don’t know how.

“I am really sobered and saddened that here in Montgomery County, we don’t have the resources,” said County Council Vice President Kate Stewart, who led the roundtable at CCI Health Services in Silver Spring.

Currently, only Planned Parenthood, CCI Health Services and Mary’s Center offer primary healthcare and screening to members of the LGBTQ+ community. While some individual medical care professionals also do, many in the LGBTQ+ community don’t know how to find them.

Most underserved are people of color, older adults, young people and those who live in upcounty and don’t have their own cars, according to Dr. Amena Johnson, Montgomery County’s LGBTQ community liaison.

“You should be able to access your needs where you live,” she said.

The county needs to help train doctors on how to better help people in this community, she said. Johnson also called for a safe space in the county for LGBTQ+ people to gather.

Dr. Will Giordano-Perez, chief medical officer at CCI Health Services, said his organization “is massively expanding” its training and number of medical professionals to help members of the LGBTQ+ community.

CCI intends to open a clinic for sexual and minority health and a pharmacy that will offer gender affirming care, which includes preventative and primary care, he said.

“So many people have to teach their providers,” he said, adding that medicals schools are not teaching this. “We are at ground zero, and we don’t understand,” he said.

Rev. Ali K.C. Bell, assistant minister at Cedar Lane United Methodist Church in Bethesda, spoke of his experiences as a transgender person. Compared to where he previously lived in Atlanta and Delaware, “I was so disappointed,” Bell said, adding that he expected much more from Montgomery County.

Stewart said the county needs to have the resources available “to get care in a way that is dignified.”

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