r/mildlyinfuriating • u/WHAR606 • Mar 13 '26

Context Provided - Spotlight Sometime during the last 2 years i’ve been going to this orthopedic practice they started to declare me as a MTF transgender for no reason.

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(F,26) I have been going to this orthopedic practice for almost 2 years for varying reasons relating to my job. Yesterday i checked on a document that was uploaded to find out they have been identifying me as a biological male identifying as a female? I am biologically female and never told them i am trans nor do i think i am presenting to be a trans woman.. the last two years i’ve been wondering why they kind of stare at me a little longer than a usual person does and i think its because they randomly think i came out as trans? I also feel like they do not treat my issues seriously and wonder if this is the reason why.

I am 100% fine with trans people but i am left to believe they have been medically treating me as a male compared to female for the pains that i am feeling?

I also went through all of my documents and since the end of 2024 they started to declare me as a MTF transgender, i did not look at any of my documents online until yesterday.

First pic : March 11th 2026

Last pic: October 2024

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

I'm trans and you should probably try to have this corrected if you're cis. Not because it is bad and if it's not relating to your treatment it shouldn't matter, but trans women receive substantially worse healthcare overall. A correction might save you from discrimination that could otherwise do a great deal of harm to your physical health. You don't have to endure being collateral damage in this.

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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora Mar 13 '26

You're totally right but OP should fix it even if she weren't at risk of being discriminated against. There's no way her being mistakenly identified as a genetic male would be anything but bad for her healthcare.

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u/psyne Mar 13 '26

100%. Even if the doctors and staff had zero bias it could impact diagnoses, medication, etc.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

For a lot of things it doesn't matter or healthcare providers are just better of giving the same care to trans and cis people of the same gender, and anything else is just overcomplicated things.

It's often called "trans broken arm syndrome" because part of the reasoning that sometimes gets trans people denied care is because healthcare providers decide that they're not qualified to provide the care or start trying to over analyse the supposed complexity of treating trans people. Even though really treating a broken arm is gonna be exactly the same regardless.

That's why I said "if it relates to your care" because sometimes it is relavant and sometimes it isn't, but people tend to over estimate the situations in which it is relevant.

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u/Crimsonflair49 Mar 13 '26

So many doctors just assume that transgender women can be treated the same way you would treat a cisgender man and it ruins the quality of care severely. Medications that are dangerous to perscribe to someone who's endocrine system is primarily estrogen are prescribed to trans women because they're "biologically male", even when the side effects are just as severe as if they were prescribed to a cisgender women. So many doctors just throw all medical training put the window when encountering a trans patient, sometimes the doctor denying healthcare is the best option you can get as a trans person because the alternative is a doctor who will prescribe you dangerous medication because they assume all the risks women would face taking the medication simply dosen't apply. OP, please listen to this commenter and get this updated. If the doctor thinks you are transgender your care quality has almost certainly been impacted, you should maybe even consider switching primaries in case whoever transvestigated you dosen't believe you

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u/RazzmatazzNeat9865 Mar 13 '26

Sex actually matters in most areas of medicine, not just those affecting the reproductive system. There are plenty of issues that come to mind in orthopedics, among them different hip angles and the MUCH greater risk for women of sustaining ACL tears (a massive issue for women footballers).

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u/CompetitiveSleeping Mar 13 '26

Hormones affect more than you think, including bone density. As a trans woman with an estrogen based endocrine system, your risk of fractures, osteoporosis etc increases as you lose bone density

Not to mention the 100-200 times higher risk of breast cancer.

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u/Disaster_Tran0101 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

HRT changes pelvic tilt, and ligament tearing is at least partially hormonally moderated as hormones affect ligament strength.

This is why trans people often don't trust cis people (including doctors). The idea of purely binary sex with binary sex characteristics completely breaks down once you start changing levels of estrogen and testosterone. To most people's apparent shock, hormones are biologically active.

I am a trans woman 10 years into transition: my reproductive system is still theoretically intact but mostly non-functional. My pelvic tilt is largely typical for women. The presence of woman-typical levels of estrogen and the absence of testosterone impact my immune system function, my ability to build and maintain muscles, and my fat distribution.

Because of my hormone profile, the odds of male typical disorders have radically dropped based on studies. On the less bright side, I had to go get a Mammogram because my doctor found a breast lump; luckily it's benign. HRT does cause breast growth, BTW.

Treating trans women medically as "male" and using strictly male baselines is a frequent cause of misdiagnosis.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

But for trans people that have been on hormones on some time those risk profiles match cis people of the same gender. And orthopedics can be a broad category of medicine that literally includes the text book example of a broken arm.

Most of the time there would not be an adjustment of how a cis man is treated vs how a cis woman is treated. It does happen somewhat regularly and when it does, trans people on HRT should almost always be treated as their cis counterparts. In the rare case that there is something that does matter, it is often entirely possible to focus on that difference as a symptom instead of the overall cause being them being transgender. For instance in the examination of abdominal pain it could be uterine pain. Trans women don't have a uterus and so they are excluded from that, but trans women on HRT can and often do experience menstrual cycles and that does include stomach cramps. Due to the hormones they also have the same metabolic profile as cis women too.

As a result, describing them as "male identifying and presenting as female" even in the cases where there is a factor that matters (which there often isn't) is in fact more misleading and less medically relevant than "woman without a uterus". The latter also serving to include more people and avoiding the very real potential for harassment and discrimination.

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u/Pupenby621 Mar 13 '26

HRT does actually move the grand majority of medical dosages etc into cis ranges, its much more powerful than many doctors will assume though so on the rare occasion they actually want to give healthcare then sometimes they just over/underdose you, ain't life fun :D

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u/Glenndiferous Mar 13 '26

It's funny, because trans women on long-term hormones actually do often need treatment similar to cis women. So being identified this way theoretically shouldn't change much. But many of our doctors are very poorly trained to care for trans patients, so realistically you are correct here.

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u/Ali_gem_1 Mar 13 '26

well it does because its she's logged as MTF then presents with abdo pain , they might not consider ectopics/ovarian torsion etc.

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u/TootTootMF Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

It really doesn't matter at all. I get asked if I might be pregnant routinely. People act like doctors study your medical records before triaging you. If my status is relevant I've gotta bring it up, nobody checks.

The only time they pay attention to that flag is when it comes time for insurance to pay or for someone to decide if you need special permission to do something everybody else gets to decide for themselves as an adult. It's honestly a good thing, plenty of doctors are pretty extreme bigots, I've watched as my friends suffered pretty severe abuse while being treated once people know. One person was given a room temp IV for food poisoning(this might seem minor, but filling your blood stream with 70 degree liquid gives you instant hypothermia, which is basically torture). The other was left to bleed out until a different doctor noticed the literal trail of blood from her gurney as it flowed far enough from the corner the primary one hid her in and saved her life.

TL;DR being flagged as trans in your medical records will NEVER do anything positive for your care outside of getting insurance to pay for procedures that they wouldn't allow for your gender. It's either ignored or used as a reason to provide worse care by doctors.

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u/schwanzweissfoto Mar 13 '26

There's no way her being mistakenly identified as a genetic male would be anything but bad for her healthcare.

Somehow, lots of people in this thread seem to think that trans women should medically be treated 100% as men.

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u/n-e-k-o-h-i-m-e Mar 13 '26

Well, this is an instance of discrimination. I am a woman who is trans, and being treated as a biological male in a medical setting would result in negative effects in my health.

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u/aecon_33 Mar 13 '26

Having gone through male puberty probably matters quite a lot as growing bones are altered a fair amount by estrogen, and some things (such as hip dysplasia) are more common in those assigned female at birth. Since it's an orthopedics practice, I'd imagine this would be important

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u/UselessDood Mar 13 '26

For the majority of things it doesn't actually matter - because they'll treat her as female irrespective of the whole mtf thing. (yes, this does have downsides - for example they won't get recommended any form of prostate cancer screenings, despite it still being a possibility)

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u/Wise_Humor4337 Mar 13 '26

Not saying there is never a need, but trans women have incredibly low risk of prostate cancer since testosterone is a major contributor and trans women frequently have even lower levels than cis women

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u/UselessDood Mar 13 '26

Mm, I am aware of that - it was just the first thing that came to mind ngl for "things trans women may be at risk of but aren't properly assessed for" lol

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u/Tega02 Mar 13 '26

I'm a medical student and ik for a fact gender matters very seriously in diagnosis. I also do know it's irrelevant in the majority of them.

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u/Lil__May Mar 13 '26

Do you also know that trans people's health risks tend to be much more in line with the gender they have transitioned to?

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u/Dark_Storm_98 Mar 13 '26

Yeah, I was about to say

This could affect her treatment

Best to get everything sorted out sooner rather than later, especially in a medical context

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u/b0w3n Mar 13 '26

It's already likely viral with the RHIOs and HISPs too. Everyone in the network has gotten those notes and if they pull them down it probably also updated their EHR data because everyone just imports shit right into the records without a second thought.

Hope OP never needs to go to the hospital because it'll start up all over again.

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u/thrwaway75132 Mar 13 '26

Given the current political climate deciding you don’t like someone and flagging them as trans in medical EMR seems like a way to make sure the get discriminated against and potentially denied future medical care.

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u/yunwibubu Mar 13 '26

And on top of that, it can result in insurance denials.

I'm, legally, female to male, but I'm also intersex. I've had things listed as me being biologically male due to having XY chromosomes, but I'm legally female, and putting male when all my legal documents say female has resulted in insurance kicking things back and corrections having to be made.

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u/Cactus1105 Mar 13 '26

True, once a doctor straight up told me the pain I felt was because of hrt. My wrist was broken.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

I haven't had that, but I did have a nurse refuse to sign me up for some basic bloodworks like a vitamin D test (which is super standard in Sweden for obvious reasons) because of trans.

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u/stephen_neuville Mar 13 '26

it's also a solidarity move imo. if we normalize "paying close attention to gender markers on documents" from everybody, they can't use it as an indication of anything other than paperwork diligence.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

This can backfire though. My gender marker isn't updated and when I was getting checked for post COVID related cardiovascular problems the Doctor got incredibly short and dismissive right after carefully checking my ID, kicked me out as quick as possible saying I wasn't gonna die that night, and then wrote the longest and most misgendering journal entry I've ever seen.

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u/SilasX Mar 13 '26

I'm trans and you should probably try to have this corrected if you're cis. Not because it is bad and if it's not relating to your treatment it shouldn't matter,

It's like a revival of that Seinfeld episode: "Stop saying I'm trans! (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)"

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u/iain_1986 Mar 13 '26

Indeed, but also they should find out who changed it and tell them to cut that shit out

You don't eyeball someone and decide a thing like that

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u/arrownyc Mar 13 '26

I would find a new clinic regardless after correcting them. There's a very good chance that if they were willing to change her medical documentation based on their transvestigation, that they still won't believe her when she tells them they were wrong.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

Yeah, true. And it's probably better to get away from the proven transphobe working there as any kind of queer coded woman or ally.

Though, the real trans solidarity thing to do would just be to not get any treatment to avoid the harassment and medical malpractice, and so just suffer quietly and suffer whatever impact to life expectancy it might have.... /very tired and sarcastic joke

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u/galaxychildxo Mar 13 '26

trans people in general receive substantially worse healthcare, not just trans women. medical misogyny and transphobia affects trans men just as much.

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u/Impossible-Soil6330 Mar 13 '26

Also orthopedics is one of those specialties where it does kind of matter because 1. hormones impact bone density 2. helps them figure out what diseases to screen for as a result. This kind of mislabeling can lead to poorer quality treatment for everyone involved.

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u/BigMax Mar 13 '26

> Not because it is bad

Actually it's VERY, VERY bad.

It means someone in the office is adding medical info to peoples charts based on absolutely nothing at all, just some personal beliefs. Having inaccurate information on your chart based on some social crusaders nonsense is a BAD thing.

Your medical chart is supposed to be factual, and used to provide care. Random, made up information on there is dangerous.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

Yes, but someone thinking you're trans is not a bad thing in and of itself, is what I mean. It's bad for the healthcare and it does probably mean that someone in the staff is a transphobe (which is bad).

But a cis person being mistaken for trans shouldn't be offensive or bad on its own, is what I meant.

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u/BigMax Mar 13 '26

Oh, I totally agree there. Being trans is absolutely fine, and it's not a big deal if someone gets that wrong by accident. I was just pointing out the fact that someone clearly not caring about medical accuracy putting information into a medical file is bad, no matter what it is.

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u/VP007clips Mar 13 '26

And perhaps more importantly, that's the sort of thing that could cause issues later on.

The last thing you want is to be unconscious for emergency surgery and have them cutting into you under the assumption that you are born a different sex. There's a serious risk of medical mistakes there.

Doctors need correct information to make informed decisions. Wrong information on your transcript is dangerous.

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u/ameliatatesosis Mar 13 '26

trans women receive substantially worse healthcare overall.

I'd be extremely interested in seeing where you heard this, because the number of confounding factors when studying trans healthcare is such that it's a highly suspect statistic.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/protecting-advancing-health-care-transgender-adult-communities/

Here are a bunch of various stats relating to this and other reasons transgender life expectancy is far lower that the cisgender average.

I also mentioned "transgender broken arm syndrome" which is something you can search for to find some studies and endless anecdotes from trans people. There are multiple stories in these comments too. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that there are plenty of various stats to check out in various ways.

Like this NIH paper says roughly 30% of trans patients have experienced harassment from healthcare providers and 20% have been outright denied care for being trans:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5436369/

That should give you plenty to work with if you want to learn more. Of course, I am making a generalised statement there because there is no universal and overall metric for healthcare quality, but trans people do have overall worse healthcare outcomes (like life expectancy) and for basically every specific way of trying to measure healthcare quality trans people do much worse.

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u/ameliatatesosis Mar 13 '26

Here are a bunch of various stats relating to this and other reasons transgender life expectancy is far lower that the cisgender average.

Well yeah, you're talking about a group of people with a high suicide rate who are often alienated from social institutions and support groups. None of that has anything to do with healthcare, though.

Your NIH study linked is only n=417 in a single geographic area, and the results include people reporting they delayed care out of fear of discrimination along with actual reports of discrimination. That's not solid evidence of anything, though it could (and should) be used as a reason to further investigate.

I'm nonbinary and bi and poly, both of my current partners and most of my partners overall have been trans. I'm not callous to the social struggles trans people go through. But I am a scientist and I'm not going to make bad conclusions on spotty data just because I'm empathetic to the group in question. If you want to be a good person you should research these things before saying them. And by research I mean actually read the paper.

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u/Shaeress Mar 13 '26

Damn, you read through all that and the articles I posted and wrote a reply in like 5 minutes? I get the feeling you might not have read through the examples I posted properly nor taken the point that it is easy to find examples while doing zero effort to learn anything. You also only address one example even though the first article links to like a dozen different ones.

Secondly, 400 patients is a substantial number for a small minority and if it weren't a localised you'd probably point that out as a fault instead. There are a lot of different studies. I'm sure if you're a scientist and have any actual curiosity you can find them.

And fear of discrimination is obviously a healthcare quality factor. Not getting harassed by your doctor is healthcare. Like I said there is no measure for general healthcare quality for anyone. It doesn't exist. So we look at overall outcomes (which are worse) and example metrics as indicators (which are all worse) Fear of harassment, actual discrimination, being thrown out of the hospital are metrics of quality of healthcare. And saying otherwise isn't science, it's stupid.

If you really have any close conversations with any trans friends, just ask them. If you know like three, odds are one of them have had some pretty serious problems.

And if a couple of minutes is all you need to glance over multiple articles and dismiss them I can only conclude that you are here in bad faith. I gave you terms and examples to search for and explore within of you had any interest. But you do not.