Several queer- and trans-led, for-profit LGBTQ+ health services have cropped up recently (I'm thinking of examples like FOLX Health, Plume & Genderfck). While there's irrefutable evidence the LGBTQ+ community desperately needs access to healthcare, privatization isn't the answer.

Many people have already commented on this and I want to share some of those tweets as part of this thread, starting with one from the always brilliant @morganmpage https://twitter.com/morganmpage/status/1354521852207640581?s=20

There's also @estradiol420 who I think also is writing on this on Patreon: https://twitter.com/estradiol420/status/1357684633572360199?s=20

I've also appreciated everything @gp_jls has to say about this! https://twitter.com/gp_jls/status/1357725364815069185?s=20

And @HarperKeenan who I've been rage-texting with about these services and who has drawn comparisons between the privatization of healthcare and the privatization of education: https://twitter.com/HarperKeenan/status/1360637879911804929?s=20

I'm sharing these tweets because it's important to me to acknowledge the expertise & labour of trans writers & scholars and to cite my sources. Reading their tweets over the past ~2 weeks has offered me a more nuanced and contextual critique of these companies & their ideologies.

Rather than repeat what these trans writers & scholars and others have said about this (read their tweets!), I want to highlight a couple of things I find particularly concerning about how these for-profit LGBTQ+ health services are positioning themselves.

There seems to be an active derision for how knowledge about LGBTQ+ health circulates informally within trans and queer communities, even though this has been - and still is - a technology of community survival and resistance. This props up & reifies 'official' medical expertise.

For example, in a Harpers Bazaar interview, the FOLX founder says you "...have to go to Reddit and like DIY stuff, which is scary and unmoderated and to the hell knows who you're getting advice from" or slog through medical literature. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/health/a35421916/folx-health-queer-and-trans-healthcare/