Lu's Pharmacy rejects transgender customer

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      A Vancouver transgender activist says that the pharmacy owned by the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective has refused to fill her prescription. Jamie Lee Hamilton told the Georgia Straight on July 14 that Lu’s: A Pharmacy for Women denied her service because she wasn’t born female.

      “I’m a member of the Downtown Eastside, a long-time resident,” Hamilton said. “I should be able to access my community pharmacy.”

      According to Hamilton, the collective’s executive director, Caryn Duncan, explained that the pharmacy won’t serve male-to-female transgender people. Hamilton said she told Duncan that this policy is discriminatory. “She then said, ”˜No, you have to be born female,’ ” Hamilton claimed.

      In a July 15 phone interview with the Straight, Duncan said she told Hamilton that the collective is committed to its original vision for the pharmacy and its other services, which is to work with “women born women”. Duncan said that the organization has specialized in meeting the health needs of these women for more than 40 years.

      “It is how we would like to continue to approach the work that we are providing women,” Duncan said.

      She added that she isn’t sure that she would describe what happened as “refusing her service”, and claimed that Hamilton tried to force her way inside. Duncan also said she feels “very overwhelmed” by the pressure she’s received to provide service to transgender women.

      “I have felt that people are employing intimidation tactics, and it’s hurtful to me personally,” she said. “As I said to Jamie Lee Hamilton, we want to help women here. We want to focus on the work that we do that’s very important to us and to the women who want to use our services. That’s where I want to put my energy.”

      Hamilton described her efforts to obtain service at Lu’s pharmacy as a “watershed event” in the attempt to advance the rights of transgender women in Canada. At a July 11 protest outside the pharmacy, transgender activist Elizabeth Marston claimed that Lu’s policy would discriminate against some of the most vulnerable women in the neighbourhood.

      Duncan characterized her actions as “generous” and “thoughtful”, emphasizing that she is willing to talk to Hamilton and her supporters about how to create a pharmacy for transgender women and their supporters.

      Moreover, Duncan said she informed Hamilton of a pharmacy a couple of blocks away that would provide adequate care. “She mentioned she wanted to access the services of a community pharmacy,” Duncan said. “I shared with her that Reach [Community Health Centre] has a community pharmacy that’s trans-inclusive, and encouraged her to go to the Reach pharmacy on the Drive.”

      According to Hamilton, Duncan told her that Lu’s pharmacy will serve transgender men who were born female. “It’s an ideology that’s really, really bizarre,” Hamilton said.

      When asked about this, Duncan responded: “We will serve all women born women.”

      Duncan and Hamilton will meet on Thursday (July 16). Hamilton said she will await the outcome of that conversation before deciding whether to file a complaint with the College of Pharmacists of B.C. The college’s code of ethics states that pharmacists must not be prejudiced by “factors such as the patient’s race, religion, ethnic origin, social or marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, or health status”.

      In a previous interview with the Straight, on July 8, Duncan said the collective decided to create a female-only pharmacy after it lost provincial funding in 2004 and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority funding in 2005. The collective secured a $10,000 grant from Enterprising Non-profits to write a business plan.

      “There have been hundreds of people involved in realizing this dream: organizations, corporations, individuals,” Duncan said. “The support for the project has been phenomenal both in donated labour, lots of volunteerism, and donated materials.”

      Comments

      68 Comments

      Jamie Lee

      Jul 15, 2009 at 2:07pm

      Just to clarify, the door at Lu's was open when I arrived. As I started walking in Ms Caryn Duncan came running to me in order to block me from accessing the front counter where the Pharmacist was. Ms Duncan demanded that I leave and I refused saying I wanted to have my prescription filled. She threatened to call the police if I didn't leave even though I wasn't breaking any law. I was denied service based on my gender which is discriminatory.

      Hopefully at our meeting tomorrow Ms Duncan will reverse the discriminatory policy in place at Lu's.
      Jamie Lee

      Just Me

      Jul 15, 2009 at 2:26pm

      Keep fighting Caryn.

      Am I the only one who thinks Jamie Lynn is a blowhard? Really? There's nothing better to be fighting against. This pharmacy has already lost so much funding that it sounds like the only way for them to keep funding is to provide the service they are providing currently. Strap on those high heels and walk to the couple extra blocks and focus on something that's really worth fighting for. If you don't like the service provided, go somewhere else.

      Brooke

      Jul 15, 2009 at 3:06pm

      Duncan says that "people are employing intimidation tactics, and it’s hurtful to me personally ... we want to help women here. We want to focus on the work that we do that’s very important to us and to the women who want to use our services. That’s where I want to put my energy.”

      First off, transwomen ARE women who want to use your services.

      Secondly, I'm sorry that she feels hurt on a personal level. I honestly am. She has invested a great deal of time and energy into Lu's. However, regardless much time it took collectively to put Lu's Pharmacy together, transfolk have clocked more hours working on being recognized in our correct gender in the first place, including in pharmacies. It is extremely hurtful to the trans community, and to me personally, that Lu's refuses to recognize me as what I am, and to sum me up by my biology and/or my childhood experiences.

      Thirdly, I would hope that Duncan, the rest of the VWHC and Lu's are open to alternate points of view and are willing to speak to the many diverse people and groups of the trans community with an open mind. It's not intimidation to state one's point of view in a peaceful way, it's just a point of view. Another example of a point of view is how she claims that her views on transwomen do not quality as transmisogyny.

      I would also like to touch on the fact that Duncan says that Lu's will be providing services transmen (female-to-male transgendered persons) is inconsistent with the policy of the VWHC who run Lu's. The VWHC states that they help women who were born women and live their lives as women. Transmen do not live their lives as women. This is also disrespectful to transmen as identify and live as men, and wish to be treated as men. This underscores the essentialist attitude of the WBW Only policy at Lu's Pharmacy and its philosophy of biological determinism.

      A difference of opinion on a single policy does not mean that we dislike Lu's as a whole. Many transwomen support Lu's, just not one the policy.

      brattysauce

      Jul 15, 2009 at 3:22pm

      I get so tired of everyone complaining about unfair
      treatment, it is a free country go somewhere else. I have been discriminated against countless times, but I refuse to let it consume my life..... Protest this boycott that life sucks to be people who live their lives always feeling shortchanged. By the way I love all people gay straight all races mixed genders love all people....

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      Aurea Flynn

      Jul 15, 2009 at 3:59pm

      I am writing in support of Women only space. By this I mean spaces reserved for women (defined as those persons who are born female and raised into their current womanhood). This experience is unique to women and shared by women, and this experience is the root of a number of oppressions put upon women within male dominated society.

      I believe that woman only space is necessary for women to seek peer help and gain strength to enable them to resist sexist oppression, in an otherwise male dominated world. In a world where women only spaces are harder and harder to find, I am gladdened to hear about the new Women only Pharmacy in Vancouver, and thank the Vancouver Women’s Health collective for the good work they do.

      I see woman only health care centers as one type of woman only space, one that provides women who were born female and socialized into womanhood a specialized health care service based upon the gendered health care needs, needs that differ from men and trans gendered people.

      I support a woman only pharmacy, because it is a woman only space, as it is feminist resistance against the historically patriarchal models of health care, so commonly accepted and promoted in western industrialized nations.

      I believe that the creation of a woman only space does not reduce the quality of care in other mixed gendered health care spaces, nor is it an impediment to men and trans-gendered people to access health services elsewhere. In fact, I believe that Lu's existence lessens the wait time in those other types of pharmacies, and could even improve quality of healthcare for all.

      Women who were born female and socialized into womanhood ought to have the right to access woman only spaces for their own issues, and have the ability to access woman delivered health care, with a peer to peer approach. In no way does this infringe upon trans-gendered rights to seek medical attention, nor inhibit their right to build their own peer to peer health care elsewhere. There is nothing in what the Vancouver Women's Health collective's Women Only Pharmacy is doing that is stopping trans-gendered persons only groups to have their own specialized and improved medical services. And lastly, I believe trans-gendered peoples energy would be better spent in creating peer based services for their own unique lived experiences of oppression, rather than attacking a women only health care service provider.

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      RHW

      Jul 15, 2009 at 4:37pm

      I am furious that this pharmacy (which I had initially thought of as a brilliant and beautiful idea) is daring to discriminate against any woman. I'm a "woman born woman" and I know that trans women are definitely as "woman" as I am. I would never dare to consider my trans friends and acquaintances as anything but their *legal* gender status.

      I do, however, think that Jamie Lee Hamilton needs to tone it down a bit and get some more people involved. This fight runs the risk of turning people against full inclusion, as she can make it seem like a personal vendetta. Through herr recent overexposure, she comes across (to me and others that I have spoken with) as focused primarily on self-publicity with the issue coming second.

      This is an important human-rights issue and it would be a shame for this discrimination to continue because of the simple pollution of the argument by Hamilton's over-courting of the media.

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      Khai38

      Jul 15, 2009 at 7:52pm

      What I don't understand, and what isn't explained by Ms. Duncan, is how exactly does serving a transgender woman threaten the services provided to other women? Sure, the experiences of women-born-women is vastly different than those of transgender women. But why are those past experiences vital to getting a prescription filled? This type of pharmacy is controversial in the first place, and by denying services to women who are legally, biologically, and anatomically female, Lu's is only going to make it harder to gain the support they need politically and from the community at large. The ratio of transgenders to born-women is infintesimally small. Just fill the prescriptions of these women and stop parsing the definition of "female".

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      Brent

      Jul 15, 2009 at 10:39pm

      Prejudice/discrimination cannot be dressed up. Prejudice is prejudice & discrimination is discrimination. Let's face it here: both are happening in this case.

      I beg to differ how a womyn's only pharmacy is any more enlightened that say, for example, an old boys golf club - both stink!

      Sincerely, Someone from the male gender who considers himself a feminist.....but a person 1st, hence, a 1st class citizen - just as trans women are 1st, not 2nd, class citizens. Same goes for alll persons...

      Amy (legally Matt)

      Jul 16, 2009 at 12:52am

      I want to address the notion of "women only spaces". I'll play the "male" role in this conversation, since that's what seems to be my "biological" role. I wonder, do the same women who advocate "women only spaces" find objection with "men only spaces"?

      I identify as an idealist and as an equalitarian. It may be more long winded than the word feminist, but I don't like to use a label that is shared by some who would advocate "women only spaces" and find objection to "men only spaces". Granted, I'm not sure of any one of yals views toward this segregation, but I'm, personally, as a woman, appalled by it. You know why? Because a few decades ago, in America (where I live), there were "white only spaces" where white people, such as myself, could hold "power" and oppress those "weaker than us". It was a direct result of fear and of an ego the size of our planet.

      Since then, "white only spaces" have been called out as they are, discriminatory and used to promote segregation. Although I agree in the notion of "women only spaces", I disagree with the implementation. Segregating two groups doesn't decrease any animosity between the two groups, and usually only increases it (no one likes being told they can’t use a service that someone else can). Additionally, individuals that don’t fit into one of the nicely packaged groups, in this case transsexuals, are left in the cold, where our feelings are ignored “for the greater good”.

      Treating a transwoman like a man or treating a transman like a woman, is the simplest case of transmisogyny – it’s breaking the “golden rule”. The medical community acknowledges that transsexuality isn’t a mental illness – that we are not insane. In fact, quite the opposite, the recommended course of action is for the individual to align their body with their gender identity – NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. So, by referring to me as a man just because I was born so, isn’t treating me like you would like to be treated – unless you like other people telling you who you are. Personally, I’m quite capable of telling others who I am, and when I do, I would hope that they respected "who I am", instead of "who they want me to be".

      Kim

      Jul 16, 2009 at 2:06am

      "she wasn’t born female." Really? I think that it would be necessary to stop these lies about human sex and to accept that there a girls who are born with penis and gonads and nevertheless never had been male.

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