Despite social progress, many transgender people say finding adequate healthcare is a struggle.
“Health care providers they can truly trust, people who have both the clinical expertise to work with them and are doing that in a respectful manner, and we’re really struggling in this community,” said Lyndon Cudlitz, director of training and education for Pride Center of the Capital Region.
Beginning Tuesday -- National Coming Out Day -- Upper Hudson Valley Planned Parenthood locations in Albany and Troy are offering transgender services, including hormone replacement therapy.
“We really are trying to launch a service that we know is absolutely necessary and needed in our community,” said Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood President & CEO Chelly Hegan.
Hormone replacement therapy can help transgender and non-gender conforming people look and feel more like the gender with which they identify. Treatment can include being prescribed medication to block testosterone along with female hormones such as estrogen, for “Breast growth in a trans woman or increased muscle mass or a deepening of voice in a trans male,” said Dr. Matthew Leinug, Albany Medical College.
Leinug, an Albany Med endocrinologist, has been treating transgender patients for 25 years. In most cases, he says the hormone therapy is safe and effective.
“The vast majority of people on hormone therapy feel much better,” said Leinug.
Planned Parenthood is also offering puberty suppression services to adolescent patients -- a treatment which delays puberty without causing irreversible changes to a patient’s body.
“Having access to the services that Planned Parenthood is going to be providing really is life-changing for so many people, and that has a ripple effect on the community as a whole,” said Cudlitz.
Treatment can be paid for with Medicaid or private insurance. So far, more than 50 have signed up for treatment.