A Trans Man’s Pharmacy Experience in North Carolina
Bless their sweet, adorable little heart
CW: Gratuitous misgendering, medical discrimination
If you have lived in the American South, and you are in the know, you can feel the visceral subtext in my subtitle.
There’s more to come in this story.
I was in line at the pharmacy to pick up my Testosterone for the month, when a wonderful thing happened.
“Sir, you can go ahead of me.”
I passed so rarely that I assumed the customer was talking to someone else.
“Sir?”
“SIR? You can go ahead of me. You were here first.”
I couldn’t believe it. They were talking about me!
I had a small party in my head. The day had arrived!
The day had arrived!
I had picked all of the correct numbers for the manly Powerball lottery.
I prepared to accept my golden Oscar of developing manhood, though I personally feel that I deserve this award for my prior performance instead.
I had passed! Yes!
Someone finally thought I counted as a “sir”. Furthermore, this stranger just decided I was a “sir” without me even asking them to call me that. They just decided of their own volition to correctly gender me. This was going to be a very good day, indeed.
Grinning from ear to ear, I gave the most sincere thank you for getting welcomed to the front of a line that anyone has ever received in the history of politeness.
You know what’s coming, don’t you?
You know that I’m too excited about getting gendered correctly.
You know that it was way too early for me to start celebrating this advance into visible manhood.
Yep, you’re right. It happened.
“ARE YOU PREGNANT?”
Instead of frantically saying, “No, no, no, no, for the love of everything sanctified and holy, I am not pregnant,” as I should have, I just stared blankly. The fog of misgendering had descended, so I was a bit of a deer in the headlights.
“MA’AM? ARE YOU PREGNANT?”
“MA’AM! ARE YOU PREGNANT?”
I was accustomed to the question, understanding why it had to be asked, but more kind pharmacists asked it at roughly the same volume that one might ask whether the customer had any questions about their hemorrhoid medication. My favorite pharmacists avoided gendered honorifics.
The question was loud enough to surely give the cis people in line with me vicarious dysphoria on my behalf. I finally pulled it together and said, “No, I’m not pregnant.” I made an effort not to look behind me to see the looks on the faces of strangers, but I hoped the looks were much worse in my imagination.
“May I see a picture ID? This is a controlled substance.”
I was ready for this. It’s always required.
My passing streak that day was apparently red hot.
The pharmacist looked down at my ID and up at my face several times, confused. Pharmacy school had apparently failed to prepare this poor soul for my transformation. I’m not really trans. I’m a shapeshifter. I’m your transformer toy. I also had cut my hair since that picture was taken, causing the entire Milky Way galaxy to turn upside down in outer space.
Trans people are powerful enough to do such things with our haircuts.
Finally, reluctantly, the pharmacist gave me my ID back.
I was asked to confirm my date of birth and my address. This is pretty standard, but hit a little differently with the looks at my ID. Was I ever going to get my medication?
“Your insurance says that they won’t cover this. You will need to call your insurance company to figure that out first.”
I know. Believe me, I know.
The insurance company I was using at the time is currently in the process of being sued by a bunch of trans people because they thoroughly deserve it. They had sent me several letters letting me know that they absolutely do not discriminate, but that they just coincidentally don’t cover any of the trans stuff.
They also wanted me to know that, even if my doctor’s office staff ever managed to submit a claim on my behalf under my legal name, they would not cover any of my other medical care, preventative or otherwise, until I had proven beyond a slivery splinter of a doubt that my issue was not in any way peripherally related to me being a trans man, since I am a medical liability of the most offensive kind.
Plantar warts being burned off one’s feet with liquid nitrogen could easily be one of those transgender things. Liquid nitrogen might cause gender transformations. You never know.
When I called to figure out what was happening with all of the medication denials, they let me know that they do not want to support my controlled substance habit of Testosterone. Only cis people can legitimately need such a medication.
Bless their precious, sweet little hearts!
People who live outside of the American South should note that my translation of this statement in this context is not appropriate for child audiences.
I have since thankfully changed insurance companies.
“Your insurance says that they won’t cover this. You will need to call your insurance company to figure that out first.”
Yes, I know that my insurance doesn’t cover it. I need the medication anyway. Here is a GoodRx coupon on my phone. The cost should be the same.
Fourteen dollars later, I walked out of the line, relieved to be done with this.
I opened the bag in the car and realized that there were no needles, just the vial.
Did they think I was going to drink the Testosterone?
I went back into the pharmacy and got back in line.
A few minutes later:
“How can I help you, ma’am?”
“You forgot the needles.”
“Ohhh, I didn’t forget the needles, ma’am. There were no needles in the prescription. Is there anything else that I can help you with, ma’am?”
“I’d like to buy four 18 gauge needles and four 25 gauge needles.”
“That’s illegal in the state of North Carolina, ma’am. You should call your doctor and ask them to change the prescription for you.”
“This has never been an issue before.”
Thankfully, another pharmacist finally heard what was happening and stepped in.
I went home with my needles and medication.
My wife is the kind of wonderful person who takes my prescription from me, grabs a sharpie, and blacks out my deadname in several different locations on my prescription, associated paperwork, the box, and the testosterone vial labels.
My pharmacy really loves to personalize my order as much as possible, so my prescription and the resulting paperwork looks a little like a formal statement from the CIA describing the United States’ level of involvement in a coup that happened about fifty years ago. It is full of blacked-out redactions.
Thankfully, I only have to do this once a month!
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