Transgender woman ridiculed and turned away at Indiana ER

When Erin Vaught walked into the emergency room at Ball State Memorial Hospital on July 18, she was coughing up blood.

You'd think a symptom like that would get her treated almost immediately. But not in Vaught's case.

According to the Muncie Star Press, after waiting for two hours, she was turned away and told that they couldn't treat her condition. Why not? Because Vaught is a transsexual. Or, as the hospital staff put it, because of "the transvestite thing".

To add insult to injury, the ER staff made the waiting time extra difficult, snickering and staring at Vaught and her partner and child who accompanied her, and referring to her as a "he-she", an "it", and a "transvestite".

First of all, there is a difference between transsexuals and transvestites.

Furthermore, and much more importantly, it is not an ER nurse's or doctor's job to render judgment on the sexual identity of a patient. That's supposed to be the job of the patient's gender specialists. ER staff are paid to treat their patients, not judge them, and certainly not to ridicule or disrespect the patients while they're waiting -- and bleeding.

Indiana Equality and the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance have sent a letter to the hospital's president and CEO urging him to conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations and, if they are proven true, to "to take appropriate actions with the hospital employees involved and to institute policies, procedures, and staff training that will ensure that such discriminatory actions are not again perpetrated."

In the meantime, the ER staff should be very, very ashamed.