Hello! My name is Irene and I currently work in an LGBT clinic in NYC as a case manager. I can certainly say that the people who come through these doors are people who have experienced vast amounts of discrimination in the health care field because of how they identify or because of their HIV status. I myself have faced stereotyping, wildly inappropriate commentary, and discrimination based on my gender and sexual preference from a previous primary care physician! Since starting my job several years ago at Callen Lorde Community Health Center, I can say that my perception of my own health (and others) and how it should be handled by those in my immediate care, has changed in the most incredible and profound way. I'm certain that our patients feel the same way. Everyone-- no matter what they identify as, has the right to be treated with respect. Most of all, their health care provider should be aware & competent of the experiences and particular health issues surrounding the person they are treating. This isn't always the case, sadly. However, there are places people can go.

http://www.callen-lorde.org/

I can't say I've knowingly had trouble with the health care system because I was gay; although I've had very unsettling issues with my doctors and treatment I have received - I believe it was because of my weight that I was not taken seriously or got the care I should have. I had one doctor come out and tell me 'not to put cream cheese on my bagels'....

As a gay physician, I would recommend the GLMA. It is the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. www.GLMA.org, it will help you find a gay/lesbian physician but if you are in the health care field you can also join.

i have been lucky enough not to hit any of this personally. but i DO give blood (or i did before i had blood exposure to a stranger who was a car accident victim - so many tests and no giving blood for a good long while) and am APPALED every single time that the Red Cross thinks that "gay" is a reason not to donate blood. it's outdated, shortsighted, homophobic and WRONG.

yeah that bothers me too, especially since they DO ask if you've had unprotected sex in the last XX months and that's really all they need to discriminate on.

Pffft their loss. I'm not allowed to give blood in Australia - not because I'm a lesbian - because they think I'm a mad cow: I lived in the UK during the early '80s.

I've had two good experiences, one in California, one in Hawaii, both before the relationships in question had any legal standing. In both cases, all the doctors and other professionals included me in all discussions and decisions even though legally I was nothing more than "friend." But also in both cases, my partner was conscious and lucid. Who knows what would have happened otherwise.

My partner and I are now registered domestic partners, which in our state is supposedly exactly the same as married except for federal taxes and benefits. But I've heard of married partners being shut out if one gets sick or injured in a state that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage. I'd guess our registered partnership would be even more legally tenuous in another state.

Only slightly off-topic, I ran across this today:

11 Dem State Party Chairs Push Gay Marriage In National Platform

Eleven Democratic state party chairs are urging the national party to make marriage equality part of the 2012 Democratic platform at the national convention in September. The group Freedom to Marry announced Thursday that the 11 chairs are endorsing their campaign to get the issue in the platform at the convention, called ”Democrats: Say I Do.”

The language of the “freedom to marry” plank calls for “the full inclusion of all families in the life of our nation, with equal respect, responsibilities and protections under the law, including the freedom to marry.” . . .

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/11-dem-state-party-chairs-push-gay-marriage?ref=fpblg

I don't understand Obama's and other Democrats' kabuki dance on marriage equality. People against equality are going to brand them as pro-gay no matter how nuanced their stance in favor of gay rights, but vaguely against gay marriage, the nonsensical position taken by Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and Obama in 2008. I don't see what votes waffling buys them.