Affirming Care: Transgender healthcare resources in Alaska.

• Author: Rhode, Scott
• Position: HEALTHCARE

Being transgender is more than a medical condition; it is an aspect of human lives. That said, transgender people have, by their nature, special healthcare needs.

Since 2014, when TIME magazine signaled a "Transgender Tipping Point," the number of Americans who say they know a transgender person has grown from 9 percent to 44 percent (plus 20 percent who know someone who is gender nonbinary), according to a Pew Research Center survey. The population who themselves identify as a gender other than one assigned at birth remains about 0.5 percent, yet that fraction is more visible.

"People did not talk about gender and gender diversity" a decade ago, says Lynn Murphy, operations director for Identity Health Clinic in Anchorage, "and now the young kids have role models, they have people they can look up to, so they feel safer by coming out as gender diverse."

Identity started in 1977 to advocate for the LGBTQ community in Anchorage. The nonprofit acquired a healthcare branch in 2020 by absorbing Full Spectrum Health, established in 2017 by Tracey Wiese, a doctor of nursing practice. "At the time, I was the only clinic in Alaska that was openly marketing to the queer community," Wiese recalls. "I had friends who were in my kitchen crying because they couldn't find providers to prescribe hormones."

Full Spectrum Health was renting space in the same Midtown building as Identity, but after a couple of years Wiese realized she couldn't stand alone. "I'm not a business person, so I kind of opened out of passion, which is not always a good foundation to start a for-profit business," she says. With at least half of her patients covered by Medicaid, the clinic's books looked more like a nonprofit. Wiese, who was already on the board of Identity, offered to let the group take over.

Gender-affirming care has likewise been added to the services offered at Chena Health in Fairbanks, which began as an OB/GYN clinic in 2006. "It's certainly become more of a part of family medicine practice," says founder Dr. Elite Hogenson. "I think as the number transgender individuals grows, people are going to have to know how to appropriately treat them."

Living as Trans

Hogenson is not just a provider of healthcare for transgender patients; she's a seeker on behalf of her daughter. "It was kind of a strange coincidence because I was doing transgender medicine for years, and then she came out about three years ago," Hogenson says. 'She was definitely a little girl, and I...