New Mexico

As Transgender ‘Refugees’ Flock to New Mexico, Waitlists Grow

Published

6 months ago

November 6, 2023

As Transgender ‘Refugees’ Flock to New Mexico, Waitlists Grow

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — This summer, Sophia Machado packed her bags and left her home in Oregon to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where her sister lived and where, Machado had heard, residents were friendlier to their transgender neighbors and gender-affirming health care was easier to get.

Machado, 36, is transgender and has good health insurance through her job. Within weeks, she was able to get into a small primary care clinic, where her sister was already a patient and where the doctor was willing to refill her estrogen prescription and refer her to an endocrinologist.

She felt fortunate. “I know that a lot of the larger medical institutions here are pretty slammed,” she said.

Other patients seeking gender-affirming health care in New Mexico, where access is protected by law, haven’t been as lucky.

After her primary care doctor retired in 2020, Anne Withrow, a 73-year-old trans woman who has lived in Albuquerque for over 50 years, sought care at Truman Health Services, a clinic specializing in transgender health care at the University of New Mexico. “They said, ‘We have a waiting list.’ A year later they still had a waiting list. A year later, before I managed to go back, I got a call,” she said.

But instead of the clinic, the caller was a provider from a local community-based health center who had gotten her name and was able to see her. Meanwhile, the state’s premier clinic for transgender health is still at capacity, as of October, and unable to accept new patients. Officials said they have stopped trying to maintain a waitlist and instead refer patients elsewhere.

Over the past two years, as nearly half of states passed legislation restricting gender-affirming health care, many transgender people began relocating to states that protect access. But not all those states have had the resources to serve everyone. Cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., have large LGBTQ+ health centers, but the high cost of living keeps many people from settling there. Instead, many have chosen to move to New Mexico, which has prohibited restrictions on gender-affirming care, alongside states like Minnesota, Colorado, Vermont, and Washington.

But those new arrivals have found that trans-friendly laws don’t necessarily equate to easy access. Instead, they find themselves added to ever-growing waitlists for care in a small state with a long-running physician shortage.

“With the influx of gender-refugees, wait times have increased to the point that my doctor and I have planned on bi-yearly exams,” Felix Wallace, a 30-year-old trans man, said in an email.

When T. Michael Trimm started working at the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico in late 2020, he said, the center fielded two or three calls a month from people thinking about moving to the state. “Since then, it has steadily increased to a pace of one or two a week,” he said. “We’ve had folks from as far away as Florida and Kentucky and West Virginia.” That’s not to mention families in Texas “looking to commute here for care, which is a whole other can of worms, trying to access care that’s legal here, but illegal where they live.”

In its 2023 legislative session, New Mexico passed several laws protecting LGBTQ+ rights, including one that prohibits public bodies from restricting gender-affirming care.

“I feel really excited and proud to be here in New Mexico, where it’s such a strong stance and such a strong refuge state,” said Molly McClain, a family medicine physician and medical director of the Deseo clinic, which serves transgender youth at the University of New Mexico Hospital. “And I also don’t think that that translates to having a lot more care available.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has designated part or all of 32 of New Mexico’s 33 counties as health professional shortage areas. A 2022 report found the state had lost 30% of its physicians in the previous four years. The state is on track to have the second-largest physician shortage in the country by 2030, and it already has the oldest physician workforce. The majority of providers offering gender-affirming care are near Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but 60% of the state’s population live in rural regions.

Even in Albuquerque, waitlists to see any doctor are long, which can be difficult for patients desperate for care. McClain noted that the rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation can be very high for transgender people who are not yet able to fully express their identity.

That said, Trimm adds that “trans folks can be very resilient.”

Some trans people have to wait many years to receive transition-related medical care, even “when they’ve known this all their lives,” he said. Although waiting for care can be painful, he hopes a waitlist is easier to endure “than the idea that you maybe could never get the care.”

New Mexico had already become a haven for patients seeking abortion care, which was criminalized in many surrounding states over the past two years. But McClain noted that providing gender-affirming care requires more long-term considerations, because patients will need to be seen regularly the rest of their lives. We’re “working really hard to make sure that it is sustainable,” she said.

As part of that work, McClain and others at the University of New Mexico, in partnership with the Transgender Resource Center, have started a gender-affirming care workshop to train providers statewide. They especially want to reach those in rural areas. The program began in June and has had about 90 participants at each of its biweekly sessions. McClain estimates about half have been from rural areas.

“It’s long been my mantra that this is part of primary care,” McClain said. As New Mexico has protected access to care, she’s seen more primary care providers motivated to offer puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other services to their trans patients. “The point really is to enable people to feel comfortable and confident providing gender care wherever they are.”

There are still significant logistical challenges to providing gender-affirming care in New Mexico, said Anjali Taneja, a family medicine physician and executive director of Casa de Salud, an Albuquerque primary care clinic serving uninsured and Medicaid patients.

“There are companies that are outright refusing to provide [malpractice] insurance coverage for clinics doing gender-affirming care,” she said. Casa de Salud has long offered gender-affirming care, but, Taneja said, it was only this year that the clinic found malpractice insurance that would allow it to treat trans youth.

Meanwhile, reproductive health organizations and providers are trying to open a clinic — one that will also offer gender-affirming care — in southern New Mexico, with $10 million from the state legislature. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains will be part of that effort, and, although the organization does not yet offer gender-affirming care in New Mexico, spokesperson Kayla Herring said, it plans to do so.

Machado said the vitriol and hatred directed at the trans community in recent years is frightening. But if anything good has come of it, it’s the attention the uproar has brought to trans stories and health care “so that these conversations are happening, rather than it being something where you have to explain to your doctor,” she said. “I feel very lucky that I was able to come here because I feel way safer here than I did in other places.”

This article was supported by the Journalism and Women Symposium Health Journalism Fellowship, with the support of The Commonwealth Fund.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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New Mexico

7 Most Inviting Towns in New Mexico

Published

7 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Press Room

When you travel, one of the best feelings is going to a warm and welcoming town. While you know a welcoming town when you experience one, it’s harder to define what makes a place inviting. A combination of vibrant culture, history, natural places, and passionate people all contribute to making a town inviting. In New Mexico, this is what the most welcoming towns have in common. Madrid, for example, has a vibrant community with art galleries and a rich history. Jemez Springs invites people to the natural scenery and famous hot springs. These are only a few of the most inviting towns in New Mexico. Here, we will explore New Mexico’s seven most inviting towns.

Madrid

Street scene in Madrid, New Mexico. Historic Turquoise Trail and Route 66.

One of the most welcoming towns in New Mexico is Madrid. The small town has under 300 residents, but despite its small size, there is a vibrant community. Madrid is well known as a funky, artistic community in the narrow canyon of the Ortiz Mountains. There are many art galleries, shops, boutiques and museums throughout the town. One of the best galleries in town is the Johnsons of Madrid Galleries which features the work of Mel Johnson plus 100 other local artists.

While Madrid is a thriving art community today, the town wasn’t always this way. In fact, Madrid used to be a mining town. However, when the coal market collapsed, the town became a ghost town. In the 60s and ’70s hippies and artists settled in the community, making the warm, vibrant community that exists today. The Madrid Old Coal Town Museum, explains more about the town’s history.

Corrales

Corrales, New Mexico, is a bigger town than Madrid, with a population of around 9,000. However, Corrales still maintains its inviting rural, small-town atmosphere. The area has agricultural heritage, and the community celebrates all things local. Many people in the town live a rural lifestyle. There are many farms selling fruits and vegetables available at the local Growers Market. There are farms to visit to grab local produce and goods as well. For example, Heidi’s Raspberry Farm sells an assortment of jams using USDA Certified Organic Raspberries.

There are also historic buildings in Corrales giving an idea of what life was like in the old town. The Casa San Ysidro is a restoration of an adobe home built in the 1870s. The town has festivals throughout the year that celebrate the community and local culture. Some of the festivals include the Garden Tour, Corrales Art Studio Tour, the Harvest Festival, the Scarecrow Festival, and the Starlight Parade.

Jemez Springs

A small town that shows off the inviting charm of New Mexico’s outdoors is Jemez Springs. The town is north of Albuquerque along the Jemez Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway. People have been traveling to the area since the 1800s to experience the nurturing hot springs. There are natural hot springs to enjoy as well as secluded, more luxurious hot springs. The Jemez Springs Bath House offers cool or hot mineral soaks and healing massages. Some of the natural hot springs to enjoy outdoors include McCauley Warm Springs, Spence Hot Springs, and San Antonio Hot Springs. Beyond the hot springs, there is a lot of natural beauty to enjoy in the town, including the wilderness of the Santa Fe National Forest and Valles Caldera Preserve. Fenton Lake State Park is a local camping spot with the backdrop of the Jemez Mountains. The beautiful scenery in Jemez Springs invites people to unplug and connect to nature and the community.

Tucumcari

Tucumcari is a small town that invites you with nostalgia. Home to murals, roadside motels, diners, and museums, Tucumcari is one of the most interesting towns to explore. The town even has its own drive-in movie theater, Foxy Drive-In, which first opened in 1956. Walk around town and enjoy the small business that invites you in with its historic charm.

To learn more about the town’s history, visit the Tucumcari Historical Museum. There is also the Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum. This museum has the world’s largest collection of full-scale bronze dinosaur skeletons. Tucumcari also has colorful murals around town, including one of the world’s largest murals devoted to Route 66 in the United States.

Santa Rosa

The Blue Hole is a famous deep pool with clear blue water and hidden underwater caves proper for scuba diving. Editorial credit: rawf8 / Shutterstock.com

Situated on the Pecos River is the beautiful town of Santa Rosa. Full of picturesque stone buildings in the historic district, Santa Rosa invites people to relax and enjoy the scenery. There are many recreational trails around town, making for a friendly, outgoing community atmosphere. Santa Rosa’s claim to fame is the Blue Hole. The natural artesian spring is 81 feet deep and is a popular spot to scuba dive. The Blue Hole has earned Santa Rosa the title of the “Scuba Diving Capital of the Southwest.”

Above all, Santa Rosa values community. Some of the local businesses have been around for decades, such as Silver Moon Cafe. The restaurant is a local staple and first opened in 1959. Today, it is well known for its signature New Mexican dishes and American favorites.

Raton

Similar to other towns on this list, Raton is a small town in New Mexico known for its outdoor scenery. Situated in the Rocky Mountains, Raton is the highest point on the Historic Santa Fe Trail. Around town, there are dazzling views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Around Raton there are many opportunities to explore and enjoy nature. Sugarite Canyon State Park is near town and is great spot to enjoy some hiking.

While Raton is a small town with a population of under 6,000 people, the people are proud of their heritage. This shows in the local cuisine. Many local restaurants make use of the green Chile and unique regional cuisine. Overall, the relaxed way of life in Raton makes it an inviting town to explore.

Mountainair

The small town of Mountainair in New Mexico has a welcoming vibe combined with stunning scenery. The charming town has historic ruins, art galleries, charming shops, forest trails, horseback riding, mountains, and hiking trails to explore. Historic sites in town merge the past with the present. There are three major historic sites that attract historians and visitors every year to the town. The Ancient Cities of Mountainair are Abó, Quarai, and Gran Quivira. The community also hosts festivals throughout the year, including the annual Sunflower Festival in August.

All the towns on this list are warm and welcoming places to go. Whether you are looking to plan a road trip or move to a new town, these small towns in New Mexico would make a great destination. After visiting any of these small towns, you will want to call them home after only a few days. The vibrant culture, history, local businesses, and nature make for an inviting atmosphere.

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New Mexico

NM Gameday: May 17

Published

14 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Press Room

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New Mexico

Ruidoso’s Water Park Ready to Kick Off Summer with a Splash

Published

21 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Press Room

Ruidoso’s Water Park Ready to Kick Off Summer with a Splash

Good news for those looking to beat the heat this summer, a unique floating water park is just a short drive away in Ruidoso, New Mexico!

Ruidoso is already among the favorite nearby spots for El Pasoans to cool off from the desert heat, but did you know it is also home to this unique water attraction?

The Ruidoso Parks and Recreation department just announced that Wibit will make a return his summer to Grindstone Lake! And the update they shared will have you thinking of spending your entire summer there!

Wibit Water Park at Grindstone Lake is an inflatable platform made up of giant slides, towers, trampolines, ramps, and wiggle bridges. Adventurous kids of all ages can bounce, slide, climb, jump and splash in the water.

Wibit Water Parks are typically found in tourist destinations, public beaches, resorts, and aquatic centers, offering a fun and interactive experience for visitors of all ages. They are designed to be safe, with rigorous safety standards and supervision often provided by trained lifeguards.

Wibit Water Park to Open in Ruidoso, New Mexico

Ruidoso Parks and Recreation

Ruidoso is situated in the south-central part of New Mexico, nestled in the Lincoln National Forest. The area is characterized by its alpine environment, with lush forests, clear streams, and impressive mountain views. The elevation ranges from 6,920 feet in the village to over 12,000 feet at the peak of Sierra Blanca, which provides a cool climate and ample opportunities for outdoor activities. You can get more info, and find out about more summer activities in Ruidoso, here.

10 Tourist Traps to Avoid in New Mexico

Are you visiting New Mexico for the first time or simply exploring the state you call home? Either way, you probably will want to avoid thee tourist traps:

10 of the Most Haunted Locations to Check Out in New Mexico

The Land of Enchantment is full of history; some of that history lies in the dark & spooky side. As a result, many sites & historic places are extremely haunted. Here are a couple of the spookiest places you can visit right now in the state of New Mexico.

Gallery Credit: Daniel Paulus

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