When Rachel Crandall came out as a woman after living in the body of a man for 35 years, she lost everything.
She said she lost her job because the hospital "wasn't too thrilled about having a transsexual" on staff. She lost her wife, her house and many friends. And she lost her health insurance.
It's an issue a lot of transgender people face, said Crandall, executive director and founder of Transgender Michigan.
"What are you supposed to do when you don't have any money?" she asked, adding that transgender people face a plethora of issues.
Women or men who choose to take hormones to help alter the physical biology of their sex to fit their gender often have trouble finding doctors willing to fill prescriptions for them, or they're embarrassed to see a doctor at all.
"A lot of trans people end up sharing needles and ordering hormones off the Internet," she said. "In major cities all over the world, trans women especially are getting AIDS by sharing hormone needles.
"These are issues doctors need to know about, and they just don't get talked about. It's getting worse every year."
Crandall said she knows people who have been escorted out of doctors' offices because the doctor didn't want to treat a "person like this."
But she said there's hope in a new generation of doctors - more and more of whom are asking for information about transgender issues. Hospitals, schools and organizations across the state are asking her to speak.
Crandall came to speak Tuesday at a diversity series conducted by the College of Osteopathic Medicine. The college surveys its students to find out what they're interested in learning more about.
Students overwhelmingly asked for a conference discussing transgender issues, college spokeswoman Pat Grauer said. This is the second year the diversity series has received funding from the university.
Students, many of whom are studying to be doctors, attend the lectures to gain insight into the perspectives of people who might be their patients someday.
"As physicians, some of us don't know what they go through," said Amy Litwinski, a second-year osteopathic medicine student. "It's foreign to a lot of us."
Litwinski said she enjoys the lectures because they address issues not usually covered in classes.
"It helps us be more empathetic toward patients," she said. "We're interested in trying to help treat patients the best we can."
And that really is all Crandall and the rest of her panel want.
"We find a lot of doctors who are neither accepting or polite with us," she said. "The way to change that is to have panels like this.
"When these young doctors-to-be are out practicing in a few years, hopefully they'll remember."
