Politicians should listen to trans people

“I wish politicians would sit in on one of my consultations and listen to the patients’ stories,” lesbian gender-affirming care surgeon Dr Angela Rodriguez tells PinkNews.

The founder of ART Surgical — a care centre in San Francisco specialising in procedures for the trans and non-binary community — adds that during her consultations, “people feel desperate, suicidal and want access to care.”

Her comments follow the results of the 5 November US presidential election, which saw Donald Trump re-elected to office. Trump has already pledged to stop so-called “transgender lunacy” on the first day of his new administration, vowing to oust trans people from practically every area of public life.

Rodriguez shares that, in the lead-up to the election, between August and November, she received “an incredible amount of calls and new consultations.”

‘We hope the president will be a president for all Americans’

Already, states such as California are “taking steps towards shielding themselves from federal changes,” she notes, with some 120 bills targeting the trans community having already been filed before the 2025 legislative session even begins.

“We don’t know what we are expecting, but we hope the president will be a president for all Americans,” Rodriguez says.

She adds: “Once these four years are over, I will still be here serving my patients, trying to do the best operations and offering support for them.”

‘This is the fight of our times’

Rodriguez, who comes from a “very religious” background in Colombia, says it wasn’t until she moved to the US that she was “able to see life in colour” after coming out as a lesbian.

The world-renowned plastic surgeon, with over 20 years of experience, says her decision to specialise in gender-affirming care seven years ago was driven by a desire to address the needs of the trans community.

“I have always been aligned with some sort of social endeavour. I think there is that deep need to fill a void.”

She adds: “I thought, this is the fight of our times, and I wanted to be in the centre of it.”

Rodriguez explains that gender dysphoria creates “incredible discomfort,” to the point that “it gives you a rate of suicide that is four times higher than the general population.”

“I don’t think I have to say anything else to justify gender-affirming medical care,” she says.

She further believes the trans community has been “ignored for so many years” and plagued with “misinformation.”

“People think that others are just becoming trans, and nothing could be further from the truth. Trans people have lived lives just out of the eye of society.”

“They are like a lot of LGBTQ+ people who, up until recently, haven’t been portrayed in the mainstream. They’ve always been part of our families; we just haven’t identified them,” she says.

Heading into 2025 she will continue educating doctors and exposing medical staff to trans patients in a bid to ensure trans care allows patients to feel “safe, respected,” and “valued.”

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