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2mon
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Walgreens requires you provide "sex assigned at birth"!?

this is along with name, race and other demographic information

They don't have a gender field, and it really feels like they are just reducing sex and gender down to "you are what you were assigned at birth", and then hiding behind amorphous medical "reasons" as justification ....

midribbon_action - 2mon

LIE. LIE TO THE CORPOS.

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Of the Air (cele/celes) - 2mon

Hack the form!

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partial_accumen - 2mon

Any chance this is a client side web form which could be modified to allow an additional choice of "None of your business, Walgreens" injected into the form?

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NCC-21166 (she/her) - 2mon

Just change it to [object Object]

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Of the Air (cele/celes) - 2mon

Yes! This is the way!

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Mk23simp - 2mon

Yikes. I would take my business elsewhere for sure. I don't use Walgreens currently, personally. My current pharmacy seems pretty alright, they changed my GF's name on her pill bottles when we transferred the prescription, no problem.

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InvalidName2 @lemmy.zip - 2mon

Walgreen's is the goody-two-shoes couch fucking Vance of the pharmacy world in my experience, so this totally tracks.

Last year when I went in to get my covid vaccine, they asked a ton of questions and then turned me away because "technically I said yes" when they asked if I'd been in contact with anybody in the past 14 days who tested positive for covid. I even explained that it was outdoors and from a distance after my neighbor briefly stopped their car to say hello and then tested positive a few days later.

I literally drove down the street to Walmart right after and got the vaccine. They only asked me about my insurance info and which arm I wanted the shot in.

What was the purpose of all those questions and why was it necessary to begin with?

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WoodScientist @lemmy.world - 2mon

Just put your hormonal sex. That is the most accurate sex you can use for any pharmacology purpose. If you're hormonally female, you metabolize medications like any other woman, regardless of your genetics. Systems like this are built by ignorant fools who think that someone's assigned sex at birth maps directly to their medical needs. They think being trans is just something that involves changing clothes or surgery. When in reality HRT rewires your body at the cellular level.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

Exactly, you would be surprised how many cis people really are confused about the medical and biological situation, they assume your chromosomes are more relevant for everything, when it's mostly the hormones!

The main exceptions I can think of are:

  • trans women who have prostates, though it's debatable how much prostate cancer risk exists when living with estrogen dominance (and usually androgen suppression or absence)
  • trans men who can get pregnant

Those still aren't pharmacologically relevant, except maybe screening drugs that could harm a fetus?

Would love for medicine to catch up and become more "trans and intersex sensitive" in its training and application (and let's be real: its research), but that reality feels increasingly distant to me.

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stankmut - 2mon

The hiding behind vague medical reasons is infuriating. When I went through this form, I was thinking "don't lie to me and I won't have to lie to you."

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

right!? It definitely feels like they don't have any right to ask this given the context, and the way they are applying it feels like it's denying trans identity (as well as not accounting for the existence of intersex folks, some of whom are neither male nor female).

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stankmut - 2mon

If you were intentionally trying to design the page in a way to deny trans people their identity, I don't know what you would do differently from this.

A binary 'Sex' field could at least have the cover of "Sorry, the code is 30 years old and we don't know how to change this field in the database without breaking things." Labeling the field as Sex Assigned at Birth means they considered trans people and considered them worth hurting.

Edit: I do think asking for sex is a CDC thing. But only asking that means you can be misgendered at the pharmacy and also ignores that hormones have a major role in your health. A doctor or pharmacist going off your birth certificate to treat you is a bad doctor/pharmacist.

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Lily [she/her, pup/pup's] - 2mon

lie :3

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FlowerFan - 2mon

I thought it was a restaurant and was enraged until I did a quick ecosia search and:

American pharmacy

now it makes sense lol.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

haha, I love this - sorry for the US-centrism đź« 

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Agent641 @lemmy.world - 2mon

Just wait til you need new guitar strings and go to the Bass Pro Shop

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Hildegarde - 2mon

what are the options on the drop down menu? I refuse to supply any demographic information under all circumstances.

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stankmut - 2mon

Just Male and Female.

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Hildegarde - 2mon

ok good to know never setting foot in walgreens ever.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

can confirm, it was just male and female

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

I refuse when there is an option to, but in this case you had to make a choice between male and female, it was a required field to schedule a vaccine.

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Hildegarde - 2mon

It sounds like a medical records thing and you should use whatever gender is listed on your medical records, which should probably match your social security records.

Some people only change state records so they have to respond differently depending on who's asking. I think in this case its related to federal records.

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E.L. Redwine - 2mon

@dandelion @hildegarde
Honestly, that is privileged information and is distributed on a need to know basis. They do not need to know.

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Hildegarde - 2mon

if your insurance is paying for the vaccine they require that information. When your doctor orders lab tests the paperwork ordering those tests have lots of personal identifying information, including a gender marker.

They shouldn't need that infirmation, but that information is routinely sent and used in medical paperwork.

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Korhaka @sopuli.xyz - 2mon

I have started picking the "not saying" option where I can now too, for everything. If loads of people do, it doesn't stand out as different when someone does.

Plus at work they recently started asking about stuff like autism, my real answer is not diagnosed but no one would be surprised. So confirming yes or no feels kinda dishonest too.

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Squished Fly (she/they) - 2mon

Had something similar happen when I made a new bank account. They asked me for my name (obviously) and my name at birth...

It's probably just a standard workflow for them to prevent easier money laundering but they didn't need any proof either...? It just felt very very strange

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Agent641 @lemmy.world - 2mon

Technically I wasn't named until like 2 days after my birth, so my name at birth was ""

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E.L. Redwine - 2mon

@SquishedFly @dandelion
Do you think that could be their way of asking for a maiden name, while trying to be progressive?

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Squished Fly (she/they) - 2mon

Not quite sure... Since she asked my for "my birth name" and not "my last name at birth" I sorta assumed she meant first and last name. Should have probably poked into it a little more :/

Also considering what bank it was, I doubt that they have a big interest in being progressive

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EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted - 2mon

this is along with name, race and other demographic information

They don’t have a gender field, and it really feels like they are just reducing sex and gender down to “you are what you were assigned at birth”, and then hiding behind amorphous medical “reasons” as justification …

What bank was it, if you don't mind me asking?

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Squished Fly (she/they) - 2mon

For me it was the Volksbank but idk what bank it was for the one you quoted in your comment xD

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EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted - 2mon

Ah, okay, yeah I've not heard of that bank before. Sounds German?

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Squished Fly (she/they) - 2mon

Yep it is. I think it's originally from Austria but has expanded to include at least Germany too.

On a different topic: I have an update to the whole asking for my birth name thing. I was at a hospital recently and they asked me the same question with my birth name. This time I asked and they confirmed that only my last name at birth is relevant and I'm pretty sure that it would have been too at the bank.

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EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted - 2mon

Thanks for the update. Yeah, I mean that just makes it seem even more suspicious. They flat-out admitted it wasn't needed, so why would they even ask?

I don't know. Maybe it's for an actually benign reason, but if it happened to me, I would think it's sus.

At the very least, it's extremely uncomfortable.

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RymrgandsDaughter - 2mon

Nah wouldn't they ask previous legal names if that was the case?

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katy ✨ - 2mon

i just put f because that's what i am; only my pcp knows my saab and that's only because i know and trust her.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

I'm debating whether to even tell my PCP - I will have to tell someone to get access to hormones, but I would really prefer to not have to disclose my trans status for so many reasons ... (one of those being the poor medical assumptions made when they assume I'm "male").

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katy ✨ - 2mon

it really all depends on your location too and whether or not you feel safe. for me, my pcp was who i initially talked about being trans with and she gave me some pointers on places to go (i also get my hormones and see my endo through fenway health which is a dedicated lgbtq clinic) so definitely only do it if you feel safe (erin's hrt map helped out a lot to find places near me)

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

I'm definitely in a safer place now, ironically I was completely out to my doctors when I lived in a very unsafe state, but that was because I had initially transitioned then and needed access to care. I'm not really out to anyone in this new city, except to the other trans people at a trans support group.

I am not worried about safety as much as all the problems that come with disclosing trans status, such as suddenly not being seen as your gender (even when you were passing before), and all the ignorance that comes with being trans.

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WoodScientist @lemmy.world - 2mon

There's always DIY.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

that's true, but less ideal in some ways ... especially I haven't figured out DIY progesterone - I like having access to safe, regulated HRT but I see DIY as a viable alternative in a worst case scenario. I'm not sure I would DIY just because I'm uncomfortable being out to my doctor 🤔

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E.L. Redwine - 2mon

@dandelion @WoodScientist DIY can hurt you. I tried DIY estrogen and…

a) It didn’t work well.
b) I found out I had hemochromatosis because it was high in iron, which built up in my body, because I can’t get rid of it.
c) I ended up with kidney and liver damage from the iron build-up.

Normal iron is 18-320 for cis males. Females are lower. Mine was 1,147 and it was killing me.

DIY hormones are a bad idea. Doctors can monitor and better balance the prescriptions.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

what was the relationship between the DIY and the iron build up?

were you getting annual blood work done with a PCP, how did you learn you had this problem?

I absolutely believe DIY could hurt someone, but I would guess the biggest way would be through contaminants in the vials and especially insufficient sterilization increasing risk of infections.

AFAIK you can also buy the same estrogen you would get prescribed (that is, vials manufactured by the same labs, with regulatory oversight during manufacturing), but the risks I had in mind were about vials that are homebrewed.

Homebrewed estrogel has less risk since it's transdermal, so it's fairly contextual what the risks are.

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E.L. Redwine - 2mon

@dandelion

They did a DNA test which confirmed it was hemochromatosis.

Fortunately, getting rid of excess iron was not that difficult. I gave blood every 11-14 days for a while. I was allowed to donate blood every 6 days, but 11 was where I was comfortable. The normal amount of time between blood donations is 56 days, but I had enough iron to replace the missing red blood cells in less than a week.

It was like being a superhero, though I don’t recommend it.

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E.L. Redwine - 2mon

@dandelion

I was using an over-the-counter natural supplement, made from bovine and porcine products without doctor supervision or approval.

I went to my PCP for my annual tests and showed signs of liver and kidney damage. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, so they thought it was cancer and scheduled additional blood work and a biopsy.

The blood test came back showing that it was not cancer but an iron overload. My body was storing the excess in all my organs and tissues.

https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/308/557/456/274/165/original/a73f9bc1061e3db7.png

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

hm, how does taking a natural supplement relate to the discussion about DIY risks? I'm sorry but I'm having such a hard time following or connecting the dots here ... were you at any point using DIY HRT and did that ever overlap with the medical problem, or is your point more broad that having medical supervision generally would have helped?

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balsoft @lemmy.ml - 2mon

I'm guessing they'll assume your genitalia match your ASAB and shove even more annoying ads into your face. Either that or leak it to the Federal Bureau for Conversion Therapy so that they can pay you a nice visit. You never know with capitalism in decline.

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SectoidLexi - 2mon

I always just say my AGAB is female. My pharmacy don't need to know and it's not illegal.

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hzl - 2mon

I was once turned away for a scheduled covid vaccine at a Rite Aid that had been bought out by Walgreens because one of the pharmacy assistants couldn't figure out how to put my gender into the system.

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ShinkanTrain @lemmy.ml - 2mon

Same thing happened to my buddy Robert'); DROP TABLE Gender;--

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

this is the dumbest shit I've ever heard

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Cupcake - 2mon

I just put male and was done with it. They do make a point to call me "sir" or "gentleman" but IDGAF just gimme my estrogens and let me be on my way

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WoodScientist @lemmy.world - 2mon

You're risking being harmed by doing so. If you're hormonally female, you metabolize medications like a cis woman. On medications with different male/female doses, you should be given the female dose, not the name one. And very few pharmacists are aware of this. Putting male as your ASAB is just asking to be improperly dosed.

You know how HRT changes your alcohol tolerance? Do you think that's the only substance it has this effect on?

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Cupcake - 2mon

The pharmacist has no say in my dosing. My doctor handles that. I could be taking it for a hormonal imbalance for all they know (the pharmacy).

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WoodScientist @lemmy.world - 2mon

Pharmacists do have a say in that kind of thing. They review every medication and dosage. At least they're supposed to.

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Cupcake - 2mon

Hmm 🤔, might differ by country? I have never once in my life been told by a pharmacist that they don't like my prescribed dose and need to change it

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Ada - 2mon

Then why put yourself in a situation that means you face misgendering and other transphobia if it makes no difference to the medical outcome?

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Cupcake - 2mon

Being misgendered by small minded strangers has no affect on me 🤷‍♀️

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

I'm not sure putting male is the right answer for trans women ... it's one thing to have a conversation with a doctor when you need access to gender-affirming care, it's another when filling out demographic information when scheduling a vaccine outside your normal provider.

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Maple Engineer - 2mon

Walgreens? A pharmacy? Why would a company that provides healthcare services want to know your sex assigned at birth?!?

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

well?

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VitoRobles @lemmy.today - 2mon

Is Walgreens the only available pharmacy?

Ours closed down because they refused to treat customers like humans and locked everything, so you always need an employee to get anything.

There's a local pharmacy that I get my prescriptions from.

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Another Catgirl - 2mon

yikes, any updates? I wanna see how it turns out.

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dandelion (she/her) - 2mon

what update are you expecting?

it will never be relevant, it's just demographic information they were collecting because I was scheduling a flu shot ...

EDIT: also potentially relevant to the context: people don't seem to be able to tell I'm trans (to my surprise), so it's not like I'll show up as a visibly trans person or anything, I've mostly just told medical people I was born without a uterus when they ask for my last period or if I'm pregnant.

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