You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Jesse Brace lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

Earlier this year, they spoke with reporter Joe Yurkaba about what it's been like trying

to get medical care as a trans non-binary person.

And they told me that they went to an ER near their hometown in 2017 to get care for their

seizures.

And they said that they told staff that they are transgender and non-binary and that the

name they go by is different than their legal name and that they use the gender-neutral

pronouns they them.

But they said that staff didn't acknowledge this information at all.

Jesse tried other hospitals and clinics, but they told Joe that this kind of thing kept

happening.

Medical providers kept using the wrong name and the wrong pronouns.

So they avoided getting care.

And about a year later, their health got much worse.

They started having daily seizures. They couldn't drive themselves to work at their job at

an Amazon facility.

So they started sleeping in their car and the facilities parking lot.

They lost their job, eventually their car.

And then they became homeless.

And they said at that point, they were having hundreds of seizures a day and they couldn't

even move at some points from where they were laying.

...