Gregory Parham
BI-219X
Dr. Hinks
13 June 2018
Artifact 7: Gender Identity and Health – Robert Eads
The film Southern Comfort directed and produced by Kate Davis and it explores the issues of gender identity in the area of rural Georgia. It was a documentary about the life of Robert Eads, a female to male transsexual who ended up dying to ovarian cancer, because of doctors being uncomfortable with treating him. Dozens of doctors refused to medically treat him due to the fact they thought as a patient, he might harm their practice and lose other patients due to his social stigma. In the year of 1997, he finally received treatment, but the cancer had already taken over and spread throughout his body.
The focus of this film is showing how transgender people are just like everybody else and how you might end up receiving more support from your own friends more than your own family. It is some bias from the medical community, discomfort, and rejection by society due to their different sexual orientation. Robert’s life was very tough because he wanted his outer appearance to math his inner self and ultimately creating his own life and personal support system through close friends. The concept of family in this film was very important. For Robert Eads is was tough situation because his biological family doesn’t support him except his three-year-old son, but the son doesn’t know him in the terms of a woman. I think he had the non-biological support from adopting two female-to-male transgendered sons and their respective partners, which was there for him through everything. Rejection from your own family can lead to emotional pain, become more anxious and insecure, and activate physical pain from the same parts of the brain that starts up the emotional pain.
The SoCo is the Southern Comfort Conference and is a safe place for all LGBT people with a similar atmosphere. It brings people from all over the world, offering opportunities for social and other interaction. The film says a lot about gender identity because a lot of transgender people are denied employment, insurance, and medical care because of their preferences and likes. Transgender people should get the same treatment as any other American person, but it’s crazy because the law says if someone is denied due to skin color or sexual orientation it would be discrimination. I feel as even transgenders want to live a peaceful and harmony life with their families. The stereotypes about transgender people that exist in this society is they have gender dysphoria and that’s the dissonance between who others say you are and who you know yourself to be. They also deal with people saying they don’t love their bodies or they don’t claim gender based on physical sex characteristics, but by the social stereotypes about what makes a man or a woman. The transgender community is affected by domestic violence at higher rates than the general populational and 41% of the transgender people attempt to commit suicide at least once in their life. Dealing with health of transgender people are lack of awareness, knowledge, and sensitivity in the health care community can lead to inadequate access to and disparities in the health care system.
The lessons I’ve learned in this film about the health of transgender men and women is everybody should be treated the same no matter what even though they are different. They have the same rights as everybody else and should be happy no matter what the situation or circumstance is. The medical treatment and health maintenance of transgender individuals are very rewarding and help a patient through an incredible life change and emerge their whole life into a healthy body recognized as his own.