Hi, fam, it's Amara.

Welcome to the Translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives.

Well, it's officially that season of the year. No, we're not talking about the holidays,

but health care open season, the time of the year when health plans, both public and private,

open up to new members and new customers. Now, for most people, choosing the right provider

is incredibly stressful. It wouldn't

have to be that way if we had a single payer system, I'm just saying. But for trans people,

that's even doubly so. Whether it's hormones and surgeries or something completely unrelated,

like a basic checkup, transgender people face so many

barriers in finding competent, affirming care. We have to be educators and advocates as well as patients.

It's a lot. The good news is that there are more and more options becoming available to us,

but there are always

complexities and trade-offs. That's why today we're talking with two trans medical professionals

who've taken very different approaches to expanding health care options for trans people

outside of traditional medical institutions. First, we have Dr. Jerica Kirkley.

She's a co-founder of Plume, a startup.

It's a company that offers access to hormone replacement therapy for a flat monthly fee.

Can we ever just completely walk away from the institutions that exist, whether that's

the pharmaceutical industry,

the health insurance industry, maybe not.

Then we talked to Dallas-Ducard.

She's the CEO of TransHealth Northampton, a clinic in rural Massachusetts that provides

...