Shallow attempts at cultural sensitivity might appear to encourage diversity, but in truth, they erase the true diversity that occurs within—not between—different racial, ethnic, and religious groups.
When medicine relies on arbitrary standards based on race alone, when it blames “comorbidities” without acknowledging the roots of these inequalities, ultimately, it plays into the same false ideas that fuel the more obvious forms of racism.
While all child-bearing people have faced reproductive oppression, BIPOC have had to fight harder to have children, to raise their children safely, and at the most basic level, to be heard.
Here’s the thing about pandemics: if a solution doesn’t apply to everyone, it’s no good.
We can recognize a reckless dismissal of trans identity in many corners of our society. When we see it acted upon by those whose actions directly impact our health and well-being—health care professionals, lawmakers, law enforcement—we understand just how life threatening such attitudes can be.
Police brutality and mass incarceration occupy significant space within the torn and ragged picture of our country’s rampant health care injustice. But as the pandemic sharpens and clarifies these disparities, elevating their life-or-death stakes to new levels, we grant law enforcement even more control.
