Trans friendly schools and application advice

[33Tchica]

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[brsboarder]

I think that everyone will be "trans friendly" However, it would be up to you as to what approach you want to take. If you can talk and write convincingly about how it has had a influence on your life and your desire to enter into the medical field then I would emphasize it. I guess what is most important is how comfortable you will be at the school and how they will be and that is probably very difficult to determine

 

[aaj117]

Hey there. I was wondering, could someone tell me what schools are trans friendly, and how I should best broach the issue during the application process? Are there many trans medical students out there? Am I considered underrepresented? Should I worry about prejudice from the admissions committee?
Thank you for your advice. I would not bring this up at all but my experiences have sharpened my desire to be a doctor, as the health care/health status of trans people in America is pretty abysmal.

So unfortunately, there is still a LOT of trans discrimination, much moreso than any other members of the LGBT community. I don't know what your stats are like, but the Warren Alpert School of medicine at Brown University is the only medical school that includes gender identity in their non-discrimination clause, and Brown was the first university in the country to include this in the university's clause. I personally wrote about the LGBT community as a medically underserved community, and how I would not be comfortable in an environment that says it's legally okay to discriminate against trans people in my essay to Brown. I also wrote about the LGBT community overall as an underserved one in my essays to Morehouse and Howard, which focus on getting care to underserved communities, as well as Tufts, in the diversity essay. While I haven't heard from Brown yet (just recently complete there), i have interviews at Morehouse, Tufts, and Howard. So some schools will be okay with it. I myself am not trans, but am a member of the LGBT community who has done a lot of activism. I don't know what year you are applying, but Princeton's health professions advisor is planning to work on a website over the next few years for advice LGBT students applying to medical school.
The only reason to include this on applications is to write about how you think it would make you a better doctor, how you want to focus on identifying the trans community as an underserved one, and how it influenced you to become a doctor. Many schools probably will still discriminate, but how comfortable will you be a t a school that would discriminate over this anyway?

 

[Flopotomist]

No school will have any sort of an official policy against trans-persons, but there are of course places where you are more likely to feel comfortable.

Unfortunately, they are all super hard places to get into also (UCSF and Stanford are two that come to mind).

FWIW, I have been to a few events in Chicago with other GLBT med student groups, and have yet to meet a trans student. Not sure if it is because of discrimination or the more likely fact that virtually no trans people apply to medical school.

If you do end up getting interviews in Chicago though, drop a line if you need to couch surf.

 

[33Tchica]

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[se2131]

Hey there. I was wondering, could someone tell me what schools are trans friendly, and how I should best broach the issue during the application process? Are there many trans medical students out there? Am I considered underrepresented? Should I worry about prejudice from the admissions committee?
Thank you for your advice. I would not bring this up at all but my experiences have sharpened my desire to be a doctor, as the health care/health status of trans people in America is pretty abysmal.

If you go to http://www.amsa.org/premed/medsurvey/medsurveyresults.cfm , you can get survey results on LGB support at different schools. It doesn't include trans support, but I would assume that high support for LGB = high support for trans. Also, I would assume that it could be slanted based on how many students apply or whether it's a self-selective survey. In any case, it may not be a bad idea to look through that to get some very general idea.

 

[MrBurns10]

Duke, which just kicked a trans girl out of housing)

Where did you see that? I'm willing to bet that if that was the case that it wasn't because she was transgendered. The admin always seemed open to the LGBT community.

 

[Weonlyskip]

While I'm not sure about the Univeristy of Vermont Medical School located in Burlington, Vermont itself, I know that the town/city (we're never sure what to call it) it's in, is extremely trans-friendly. UVM (for their undergrad) has many trans-housing options and runs a conference called the Tranlating Identity Conference every year. I'm a transguy who grew up in Burlington. It was an amazing place to be out. I will tell you that there are far more transmen in the area than transwomen, but at the same time, there is still a decent out population. If I make it to medical school...it's my dream to go there. I'm only a freshman in college, but I've talked to the Dean of the school and she was very accepting. Good luck!

 

[33Tchica]

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[aaj117]

worst case scenario: they read my personal statement and think i'm some sort of freak....
best case: they think I'll add diversity and give my app a boost

I just hope it's the latter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you applying this year or next? Can you keep us (or at least me via PM updated on how things are going? I'm really interested to hear. I am applying right now and i am out/queer, i never explicity state how i identify in my applications but discuss a lot of LGBT activism work and it has been working out well for me, so i'd be willing to discuss privately in more details which schools have responded which ways towards it. THanks

 

[phantom limb]

You guys are so sweet. Thank you for commenting on my post so quickly. I agree that the best schools for me are the most competitive--kind of a downer! I am from North Carolina, and I just don't see myself getting into the med schools here (Think ECU, Wake Forest, UNC, and Duke, which just kicked a trans girl out of housing)

They didn't actually kick her out, she moved out of the dorm due to a bathroom issue a resident's father was concerned about.

 

[TheLesPaul]

Loma Linda.

^_~

 

[Blade28]

Are you planning on bringing it up in interviews, or writing about it in your personal statement?

Or are you planning on doing something outwardly visible during the interview?

Forgive my ignorance, I'm just not very familiar with this issue.

 

[soulspokn]

Loma Linda.

^_~

hahaha. thats killer. love it =P

 

[Vaulter]

Are you applying this year or next? Can you keep us (or at least me via PM updated on how things are going? I'm really interested to hear. I am applying right now and i am out/queer, i never explicity state how i identify in my applications but discuss a lot of LGBT activism work and it has been working out well for me, so i'd be willing to discuss privately in more details which schools have responded which ways towards it. THanks

I'd like to hear more about it, too. I'm also out, and though I was also not explicit about my various identities in my app, I applied last year with lots of info about my queer peer counseling and trans activism in my activities list. That went over really well over all, I'd say, though I only applied to schools that mentioned sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies in the first place (I figure I can work on adding gender protections later, like I did at my undergrad). The one thing I can caution you on is I got explicitly asked about my sexuality, gender identity, whether I wanted to have children, and how I responded to social views on these matters during a few interviews. That was somewhat unexpected.

 

[TheRealMD]

Loma Linda.

^_~

Your funny.

 

[DoctaJay]

Loma Linda.

^_~

Yeah, you may have a problem at openly Christian medical schools, but you will have like 122 other medical schools to choose from. I think that if your app is reviewed by someone from an older generation you will have a harder time, just from generational bias, but if you apply broadly there are some LGBT friendly schools out there who would have no problems with it.

 

[Flopotomist]

Yeah, you may have a problem at openly Christian medical schools, but you will have like 122 other medical schools to choose from. I think that if your app is reviewed by someone from an older generation you will have a harder time, just from generational bias, but if you apply broadly there are some LGBT friendly schools out there who would have no problems with it.

I would say to be careful about this sweeping generalization, and only listen to people that actually go to these schools. I go to Loyola (one of the Jesuit schools) and have nothing but positive experiences to report. It would be a shame for members of the GLBT community to write my school off as a possibility because of uninformed opinions like the one above.

 

[Jolie South]

I would say to be careful about this sweeping generalization, and only listen to people that actually go to these schools. I go to Loyola (one of the Jesuit schools) and have nothing but positive experiences to report. It would be a shame for members of the GLBT community to write my school off as a possibility because of uninformed opinions like the one above.

yea, and from what I understand, though Georgetown is Jesuit, they have a come as you are policy. Now, they didn't explicitly mention GLBT people, but they definitely stated that they didn't care who you are or what background you were from as long as you were committed to advocate for those with no voice and agreed with their cura personalis philosophy.

you could definitely argue your case about the underserved GLBT community.

 

[Doctorverardoll]

Harvard, BU, Tufts- I'm not sure of their policies, but Boston is an open city and there are a lot of support groups in the community. Also there is Fenway Health Center, which specializes in GLBT health issues.
Good Luck!

 

[DoctaJay]

I would say to be careful about this sweeping generalization, and only listen to people that actually go to these schools. I go to Loyola (one of the Jesuit schools) and have nothing but positive experiences to report. It would be a shame for members of the GLBT community to write my school off as a possibility because of uninformed opinions like the one above.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. LLU is alot more conservative, and I know at LLU that it wouldn't fly. You would probably definitely have better chance at the Jesuit schools.

 

[Nevadanteater]

I would not bring this up at all but my experiences have sharpened my desire to be a doctor, as the health care/health status of trans people in America is pretty abysmal.

follow the same advice everyone else gets here on SDN. apply broadly and within your stats range. it doesn't matter (too much) where your desire to get into medicine came from, just as long as it is genuine. sure, there will be some anti-trans sentiment, but as long as you're competitive enough, you should be good to go.

i'm really happy to see this post. at the moment i'm working at a free TG clinic and loving it. the patients are amazing as are the medical providers. i'd like to hear more about your application process as you go along. send me a PM sometime as you go along.

 

[33Tchica]

where at?
how did u get involved with that?
something I'd love to do.

 

[33Tchica]

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[MystA RavE]

You would probably have to fix the the fact that you're a troll first...

 

[mints of b]

33Tchica,

Your avatar frightens me. Literally.

EDIT: It's so disturbing in fact, that I side with MystA RavE. You can't be real. And if you are, you should be excluded from medicine based on your choice of avatar alone, regardless of what's flopping around between your legs.

 

[Despina]

You guys are so sweet. Thank you for commenting on my post so quickly. I agree that the best schools for me are the most competitive--kind of a downer! I am from North Carolina, and I just don't see myself getting into the med schools here (Think ECU, Wake Forest, UNC, and Duke, which just kicked a trans girl out of housing)

I hate to say this, as I consider myself to be a pretty open-minded person. There is still a lot of prejudice (there was just an article talking about how there is a lot of prejudice in the medical community). Unless, you want to use it in your "How I faced a challenge" essays, I would conform in appearance for interviews, and not mention in it in your essays. Once you get accepted be whoever you are. A lot of my guy friends cut there long hair, hid their tatoos, pulled off all their jewlery for interviews, and the day they had an acceptance starting growing out their hair again.

 

[Vaulter]

I hate to say this, as I consider myself to be a pretty open-minded person. There is still a lot of prejudice (there was just an article talking about how there is a lot of prejudice in the medical community). Unless, you want to use it in your "How I faced a challenge" essays, I would conform in appearance for interviews, and not mention in it in your essays. Once you get accepted be whoever you are.

As awful as this is, I have to recommend it as well. I applied last year without identifying but looking quite masculine. It's obviously not THE reason I'm a reapplicant, but as I am female-bodied, I tried to femme up my image this year, changing my shirt and hairstyle and even adding the tiniest bit of makeup. I hate it, but it will probably help. Looking as normative as you can stand, whether that's going stealth or pretending to be how they'll want you to look, can only help your chances.

I am still listing all my queer and trans ECs, though. The medical profession is very conservative, but they're pleased with helping underserved communities.