Nice to meet you, I'm a big fat homo

We live in one of the most gay friendly cities in the U.S. And still queers run into discrimination issues, especially in health care.

Neither M. or myself have too many problems walking into the office of an unknown doctor and announcing ourselves to be non-mainstream. But this has come from years and years of practice. And from knowing that our lives are inherently political if we want to have the level of freedom and honesty that we've come to enjoy. This doesn't make it fun when the doctor reading my mamogram says "And WHO are YOU?" to M. because I asked for her to be in the room with me and she doesn't have a penis to make our relationship easily discernable.

DtD is having doctor issues. He has to walk into the doctor and announce that he's trying to make a baby with two other women, and deal openly with his sex life, and do this all alone (I'm thinking of offering to go with him if his bf isn't available and he'd like a friend by his side.) So he's asked up for help (praise jeebus). In the very least he's going to get a good doctor out of this.

What have we discovered? It's very difficult, even in Seattle, to locate a doctor who can deal specifically and sensitively with queer men's health. We have non-profits and clinics that focus specifically on lesbians. Men have Gay City which is more about safe sex in the park than about finding a good practitioner.

Is this going to turn me into an activist for gay mens' health? Maybe not, but it will put it on my radar in the same way that 1.5 years of volunteering at an AIDS hospice made me realize the devestation that HIV is still wreaking. Gay men should be able to find safe spaces for their health care in the same way lesbians are able.