My name is And Steiner it/its,

I am a non-binary, transgender patient currently hospitalized under the "care" of MA's Dept. of Mental Health (DMH)

Around the time I came out as non-binary and transgender, including enforcing the use of my name and pronouns, I began to experience a lot of abuse, much of it directly related to my sexual orientation and gender identity such as purposeful dead-naming and not being allowed to use the bathroom according to my gender identity.

I also asked for access to Gender Affirming Care (GAC) around 2 years ago and was simply told by my doctor "I don't know anything about that". I was denied GAC for over a year which is illegal in Massachusetts (MA).

I began writing complaints about my abuse which made it worse. I then began seeking help from the highest office in DMH the Office of Inpatient Management, which also made it worse. I resorted to a mass-emailing campaign to lawmakers in an attempt to stop the abuse and bring attention to my situation, allegations of systemic abuse in DMH hospitals against queer and gender-diverse patients and sound the alarm on the questionable circumstances surrounding the death of another transgender patient, Jean Busch. You can sign a petition in an attempt to get her death investigated HERE.

As a result of my filing complaints and reporting Jean's death I was forcibly moved to a prison hospital (short-term acute forensic), despite being under no criminal investigation, where I was brutally assaulted and harassed daily.

At that "hospital" I continued to request GAC and was told I was put on waiting lists. I waited for another year and finally was able to make an appt for care only after seeing an ad stating that Fenway Health was taking new clients and notifying my social worker.

Throughout this nightmare, I learned and became very familiar with DMH policies and came to realize that there are ZERO policies in place in order to ensure DMH provides GAC to its clients. And this is in a state where the Dept of Corrections has those policies in place! And this is a state that literally advertises itself as a safe haven for queer individuals.

We already have lawmakers and lawyers that are interested in sponsoring legislation to fix this! Now we just need to prove to Massachusetts that we want MA's DMH to write policies that ensure gender-diverse patients have quick and quality access to life-saving GAC!

Our message is this; Massachusetts advertises itself as a safe haven for queer people. Yet one of your largest state entities, that provides mental healthcare to tens of thousands of patients, has no policies in place to ensure clients have access to GAC, despite even prisoners having this right. We demand that the queer patients you serve under DMH also have that right. We demand that DMH has these life-saving policies in place to ensure that!