Cassandra Paciella’s family knew she needed the right kind of health care to support her 16-year-old daughter’s journey when she came out as a trans man three years ago.
A Port Jefferson Station-based Stony Brook University employee wellness producer, Mary Paciella, had read about the dangers that the LGBTQ+ community faces because those who are unable to seek medical and psychological help.
“I wanted to make sure we got it right,” Mary Paciella said. “I wanted to pick the right doctor and proceed carefully. We simply wanted to let her know that we would always be there for her. She’s also our child and everything changed. Whether you can do this or a child that can’t, it was never a question.”
According to experts, Long Island’s access to medical services that address the LGBTQ+ group’s special needs has increased over the past few years, and matching community members with the right provider continues to be important in order to ensure their acceptance. In order to inform queer and gender-fluid people that there is niche care for them, local health care systems are updating use forms and updating the system.
What to Know
- Long Island health companies are reaching out to the LGBTQ+ community, letting them know that treatment for their special needs is attainable.
- The society’s inability to meet their health needs is often linked to poor psychological health, according to one survey.
- It is crucial to connect group members with a health company who is accepting of their demands, according to doctors.
Cassandra Paciella, who was born male, said she knew at 12 she was a girl, but didn’t come out until about four years later, she said. She told her parents, who helped her suit with a doctor and began therapy with Dr. Allison Eliscu, clinical director of the Adolescent LGBTQ+ Care Program at Stony Brook Medicine.
“Gender was not a hurdle,” Cassandra Paciella said. “I was never really told I was never allowed to do something because you’re a boy. The biggest concern for me was the dysmorphia and the social expectations I had of other people, which is not who I am. At 16, I decided I hadn’t never say anything nowadays and it’s been wonderful ever since.”
Stony Brook reaching out
Stony Brook has been making presentations on the North Fork about LGBTQ+ diversity and solutions ranging from HIV treatment to transgender services in an effort to raise consciousness of the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center in Hampton Bays. One of the first comprehensive health services for the LGBTQ+ area was at the center.
Stony Brook’s individual offices have expanded inclusion, with some employees wearing rainbow flag pins and documents letting patients choose their preferred sex, racial orientation, and name.
“When we can offer it in their own backyard,” Eliscu said, “more sex diverse people were coming into the area from all parts of Long Island to get it.” “However, many people have had a bad experience in health care, so it makes sense they are anxious about how they’d been perceived by nursing staff and suppliers.
“We want to ensure that their health journey is good,” Eliscu continued. “They’re not going to discuss and obtain what they really need without them feeling secure.”
A spokeswoman for NYU Langone Health, including NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island, said the health maintenance system was designated an LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ campaigning group, in its most recent statement.
Providers can identify LGBTQ+ health care as a therapeutic priority on their physician profiles so patients can search for this label especially, the network said, and staff at NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island full standard training in LGBTQ+ health care.
NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island also has an LGBTQ+ Committee and a devoted director of LGBTQ+ service. The doctor has performed gender-accepting operation since January 2023, and has a devoted director of LGBTQ+ medical services.
Additionally, Northwell Health works to provide specialized treatments and transgender health care to make LGBTQ+ patients more at ease. The system created the Center for Transgender Care in 2016, and doctors have seen more than 3,000 patients. In New Hyde Park, the center will soon open a free-standing office.
Dr. David Rosenthal, a pediatrician who is the medical director of both the Center for Young Adult Adolescent and Pediatric HIV and the founding medical director of the Center for Transgender Care, said, “After a few years, we saw a significant need to address LGBT health care needs.
“Because there is no connection to health care providers,” he said, “I believe there is an increasing need and people have not received it.”
Need to raise awareness
One of the goals of Sunday’s National Day of Transgender Visibility is to raise awareness of the medical and psychological needs of the LGBTQ+ community. According to experts, difficulties in getting gender-affirming services can occasionally be attributed to poor mental health, a finding that has been proven by others in the LGBTQ+ community.
A 2021 Stony Brook survey of Long Island LGBTQ+ adults found that nearly half, 44%, of 1,150 respondents reported being in fair to poor mental health. More than 60% reported feeling depressed, and up to 33% of respondents had considered suicide.
About 55% said they had a routine checkup, and 37% of those surveyed said they felt disrespected for non-affirming treatment, according to the study.
When a young LGBTQ+ woman claimed she had thought about standing in front of a train, Eliscu said she realized the significance of her work. The woman claimed to have shared the story after noticing her doctor’s rainbow pin.
According to Eliscu, “everyone should have a primary care and medical home where they feel comfortable and receive the consultations and diagnoses they need,” regardless of how they identify. The numerous obstacles people may face when seeking medical care and having a negative experience were highlighted in that study.
Anne O’Rourke, 28, of Centereach, who identifies as nonbinary and prefers the pronouns “they” or “them,” said they didn’t know where to start transition care. O’Rourke claimed that their former primary care physician had a negative experience and that he questioned their choice to have surgery.
O’Rourke said, “It was disheartening and a scary place where my medical needs and needs as a person were being overridden by an article the doctor read online. Unfortunately, I was in a position where I couldn’t leave and I had no idea how to get out of the situation, which was really upsetting.
They later contacted a Stony Brook physician in Setauket and a Northwell surgeon, who inquired about their preferred pronouns and preferences. O’Rourke, who grew up on the North Fork, said they were glad to find accepting health care on Long Island.
O’Rourke said, “They took so much care to make sure my health needs and my level of comfort took priority and comfort in my body was stressed out so clearly in the office. After a recent positive experience following a frightening experience, it’s really important to me. I didn’t know that there was a community in my own backyard.”
John Asbury is a reporter for general assignment and breaking news. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press- Enterprise in Riverside, California.
