An alarming number of transgender people delay seeking healthcare because of fear they will be discriminated against.
A group of transpeople have joined together to cofound MyTransHealth in hopes of ameliorating the problem. They've raised money at KickStarter. The start-up is scheduled to be operational this fall.
Kade Clark is a trans guy and operations manager in NYC. He loves problem-solving, list-making, tiny houses, and craft beer.
Robyn Kanner is a trans woman and freelance designer in Boston, MA. She loves bikes, breakfast, and feelings.
Annika is a a software engineer for a Brooklyn-based startup, working remotely from New Hampshire. She’s often found cleaning up after her three kids and their menagerie of pets.
Amelia Gapin is a trans woman and software engineer at a major blogging and social media company you know and love in NYC (Tumblr). She is also a marathon runner, wife, mother to three cats, and a bagel snob.
This health portal will help people in New York, Miami, and San Francisco find qualified, understanding doctors in their neighborhood, filter the search by what matters most to them, and rate and review their experiences to share with others. Chicago and Philadelphia will soon be added.
When it first launches, the MyTransHealth website will include a list of verified doctors in each city along with a detailed search feature allowing users to locate providers by the type of care they need.
There have been lists before that are basically crowdsourced dumps of data or they’re not maintained. You don’t know the quality of that data, so we wanted to address that, as well, to make sure that people can trust what they get from us. That way there’s accountability.
--Amelia Gapin, co-founder and CTO of MyTransHealth
Gapin says they’re launching with the responsive site instead of a mobile application so it is more accessible to the trans community. According to the National LGBTQ Task Force, transgender people are four times as likely to have an annual income under $10,000, which means smartphone apps would not be as accessible.
--Kaya Thomas, TechCrunch
To be on the site, healthcare providers must pass a screening process that entails answering a series of questions to determine their knowledge of trans issues and level of inclusiveness. They already have over 50 doctors in their database and have been contacted by several doctors who are willing to learn more.
After the launch, reviews and crowdsourcing will be introduced.
We are aware of the fact that we are five white people working on this, which means that there is a whole experience that none of us know. It is really important to us that we get people involved who do have those experiences to make sure we’re covering everyone. We’re going to ask the doctors if they have experience with working with trans people of color and minority communities.
--Galpin
More
at Mashable.
More at The Kernel