The day in medicine, supplemental

I forgot to mention. The other thing about my nurse practitioner is that he's a fellow Firesign Theater fan.

He was preparing to give me the hepatitis vaccinations and started yawning a lot. He explained that he's developed an allergy to sulfa. I said, "Oh, I thought it was just such a long exposition." He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and said, "Now that's just classic", and we spent some time agreeing on the merits of Firesign Theater.

Those of you not familiar with these guys may listen to some of their best material in this three-part playlist. Firesign Theater's specialty is audio humor of a thoroughly anarchic sort; they are to American culture more or less what Monty Python was to British.  

My country, 'tis of trolls

So it's the 4th of July, official occasion of my country's founding, and once again the legacy is mixed, to put it mildly. But there's a side of American history that goes generally unhonored at official occasions: America is a land of smartasses. We were founded by smartasses. I give you Benjamin Franklin, writing to the Times of London in 1765:

And yet all this is as certainly true as the Account, said to be from Quebec, in the Papers of last Week, that the Inhabitants of Canada are making Preparations for a Cod and Whale Fishery this Summer in the Upper Lakes. Ignorant People may object that the Upper Lakes are fresh, and that Cod and Whale are Salt-water Fish: But let them know, Sir, that Cod, like other Fish, when attacked by their Enemies, fly into any Water where they think they can be safest; that Whales, when they have a Mind to eat Cod, pursue them wherever they fly; and that the grand Leap of the Whale in that Chace up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed by all who have seen it, as one of the finest Spectacles in Nature! -- Really, Sir, the World is grown too incredulous: Pendulum-like, it is ever swinging from one Extream to another. Formerly every Thing printed was believed, because it was in Print: Now Things seem to be disbelieved for just the very same Reason. Wise Men wonder at the present Growth of Infidelity! They should have consider'd, when they taught People to doubt the Authority of News-papers, and the Truth of Predictions in Almanacs, that the next Step might be a Disbelief in the well-vouch'd Accounts of Ghosts and Witches, and Doubts even of the Truth of the A ------ n Creed.

That's my country's spirit right there. Happy holiday, fellow Americans and bystanders.

Sex specification and trans people

Queen Emily of Questioning Transphobia is guest-blogging over at Feministe at the moment, and has a great post up about what the sex declarations on forms mean in practice for trans people:

A small example: Imagine you went to the hospital, with stroke-like symptoms (it was later found to be “complicated migraines”). Because you want to actually be treated, you do not out yourself as transsexual. When the triage nurse filled in the forms, he puts female, and you leave it there. All is fine, the doctor for once treats you seriously, possibly because of the presence of your mum, aunt and cousin (quick lesson you learn when dealing with doctors while trans: there’s safety in cis scrutiny. Bring your mum or your partner with you into the examination room).

Fast forward to a week later, and I’m (sorry, you) at a neurology department to see a specialist to organize an MRI, when one of the reception people comes out to see you and starts screaming that you’re a GODDAMN LIAR because your forms say I’m female but some quirk of the computer system has found your birthdate and surname and pinged up an old treatment from when you were six. Because of this, they decide that your name isn’t real either, and it takes three trips to different departments with your changed birth certificate (changed in name but not in sex). In the end, they put a post-it on your file, with your name, your legal bloody name, in quotation marks like it’s a fucking nickname. And these are the people who are supposed to help you.

Now imagine what happens in an emergency situation.

As she says, this is one of those things that cis people just plain don't deal with very often. I haven't run into it yet...but inevitably I will. Every trans person does. The whole post (of which I've taken just one part) is well worth your reading.