Thailand opened its first clinic for
transgender people in December.
The Tangerine Community Health Center
is funded by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) and other development groups. It offers psychosocial
counseling, hormone administration and pap smears.
U.S. Ambassador Glyn T. Davis attended
the clinic's opening in Bangkok.
“The Tangerine Center will provide
friendly, needed services to the transgender community locally, while
leading the region in identifying and sharing models to improve
health care access and quality among transgender people. These
efforts will be critical to achieving an end to AIDS, but will also
contribute to a much broader agenda to promote the health and rights
of transgender people.”
While Thailand is a top destination for
sex reassignment surgery, post-operative care and support remain
elusive.
“Right now people who are injecting
these hormones outside of the clinic, many of them are using hormones
that they purchased online or from the black market,” Dr. Nittaya
Phanuphak told the
AFP. “And that's not something we would like to encourage
people to do.”