No one likes going to the doctor, but for Raven Salander, the experience can be downright dreadful. The Vancouver transgender woman says that the health-care system is the last place where a lack of awareness surrounding gender identity should exist.

“Whether you call it discrimination, oppression, or discomfort, it begins immediately upon walking into a strange doctor’s office,” Salander says by phone. “You’re met with a double take by the receptionist. Then you’re asked, ‘Can I help you?’ which comes across as meaning, ‘What are you doing here?’

“For someone such as myself, who came out later in life, my presentation is female but it’s also obvious that I’m not born female, so then what happens is you’re misgendered,” she adds. “I’m referred to as ‘sir’ or ‘mister’, and I have to correct people. It’s one thing for that to happen at the supermarket, but in a medical situation it’s highly uncomfortable and feels unsafe. So then you’re going to go into a room, take off your clothes to be examined, and all the while people who are there to help you do not get it. Sometimes you’re met with real attitude.”

Salander, a youth support worker, came out four years ago—at age 50—after 45 years of knowing that she didn’t feel right being male. A Montreal native who is a certified yoga instructor, she began volunteering at the Catherine White Holman Wellness Centre two years ago. White Holman was a social worker and advocate for transgender people who died in 2009, and the centre in her name aims to provide health and wellness services to trans and gender-nonconforming people “in a way that is respectful and celebratory of clients’ identity and self-expression”.

Operating out of Commercial Drive’s REACH Community Health Centre and open two Sundays a month, the wellness centre is run by volunteers. It offers primary and preventive health care, occupational therapy, counselling, nutritional advice, and free hormone injection supplies. There are an art group, access to legal advice, a community kitchen, and other programs and resources.

Through yoga classes, Salander hopes to share with others the practice that has helped her cope with many of the challenges associated with transitioning and being transgender in a gender-conforming world.

“There are often real barriers to activities like exercise and yoga for people who are dealing with gender issues, such as transgender, gender diversity, or gender-questioning,” Salander says. “Even something as simple as the change rooms in a public swimming facility or in a workout facility at a community centre or private gym can be barriers. We are a centre that is welcoming, inviting, and inclusive, and we provide an opportunity for people to feel at home and feel safe.

“I started doing yoga for myself because it was a great stress-management tool and it made a big difference in my life,” she adds. “As someone else put it to me recently, it’s the one thing that works to turn off your thinking. To have that hour or hour and a half of just being with your body and being with your breathing has long-term benefits. It’s something I love and that has been really helpful to me and has been there through many, many changes and through some stressful times. It’s been a great advantage to me, and I’m honoured to be able to bring that to others.”

Salander will be joining the CWHWC in this year’s Trans, Two-Spirit, and Genderqueer Liberation and Celebration March, which is organized by a gender-diverse committee independent from the Vancouver Pride Society. She says that despite the tremendous progress that has been made when it comes to awareness and understanding of issues faced by members of the transgender community, much more needs to be done. This is underlined by the fact that the B.C. Liberals—in a move that resulted in them being banned from marching in this year’s Pride Parade—refused to sign an equality pledge calling for new legislation to protect transgender people.

“I don’t know how in this day and age they could take that position,” Salander says. “Public attitudes need to change, the medical establishment needs to change, and people need to be more accepting and embracing of those of us who are not part of the dominant culture as cisgender or heterosexual.

“In describing Catherine [White Holman] in her bio, the writer said she saved a lot of lives with love. She believed that the marginalized were not loved enough by society, by family, or by the world. That’s how she approached her work, and I think that’s how the centre approaches its work.”

The Trans, Two-Spirit, and Genderqueer Liberation and Celebration March takes place on Friday (July 31), with assembly starting at 5:30 p.m. at Clark Park (1500 East 14th Avenue, at Commercial Drive).