so, I went to the doctor....

[rm]

Right, so just went to the 24-hour clinic, because I have a UTI and that was too unpleasant not to get drugs for RIGHT NOW.

As per usual, there are a billion questions, including things about sexual orientation and how I know I have a UTI. These things are related, as women often get UTIs after penetrative sex, so the whole thing sort of came up in a context of "I've had these before, but not in ages because it happened more often when I was having it on with boys, but trust me, I know what this is and exactly how I got it" and also because the paperwork asked.

I was wearing, for the record, a white t-shirt, black pants and a black jacket. And a push-up bra ( really only have tow type sof bras -- push-up bras and bras I use for binding. There is no neutral). Sure I have short hair, and when I'm at the doctor's office and not freaked out I'm pretty calm and in control and authoratative and when I don't feel well, my voice tends to pitch lower, but seriously folks, if you've met me, and while it's easy for me to read as masculine, it doesn't really happen without effort. At all.

So imagine my "WTF?" when the doctor, very deliberated maked an x on the little line dividing the male and female boxes on my perscription form. Was it a 60+-year-old doctor trying to be cool about bisexuality and not quite getting it right? Was it bad hand-writing? (althugh his handwriting mostly didn't suck? Was it someone having a gender clue? Or was it more of the variety of the poeple at Citibank who call me "sir" even when I'm wearing lipstick and high heels.

The world may never know.

But now I'm home. And I have Cipro.

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it is a perfect system. Any system is open to abuses. Usually a pharmacy has a form or way of designating someone to pick up your prescriptions, ostensibly as a way to prevent people from stealing drugs from family members or strangers - but clearly not all pharmacies are the same about enforcing that or how they deal with it.

[realtsunamigirl.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

You're absolutely right that any system is open to abuse. I've often thought that ours could be easily taken advantage of. I take some meds that are basically legal, pharmaceutical grade narcotics. The way the drug store I go to works, all someone would have to do is get there hands on one of my bottles with a refill on it, call into the store's automated refill system with the prescription number and then walk in and ask for it with my name. No ID, no nothing. Pretty scary.

So yeah, a system is a good idea, I just wonder how one can be practically enforced.

I just think that having gender as an identifier seems like a problematic idea at best and a ethical and political tinderbox at worst.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I just think that having gender as an identifier seems like a problematic idea at best and a ethical and political tinderbox at worst.

Any more so than having it on drivers licenses?

One last argument in defense of the gender box - useful for indicating if they are going to call you Mr or Ms on the phone.