KANSAS CITY, Mo. — KC CARE Clinic opened a transgender clinic in July 2017. Now, it's booked through June.
Dr. Frances Grimstad is a gynecology fellow at Children's Mercy Hospital. She's also the founder of the transgender clinic.
"I realized that if I wanted to make a change that I had to be a part of the movement to be able to provide care to people who didn't have access to it," she said.
Twice a month, Dr. Grimstad started seeing four patients a night. Now, she sees six per night. She says the majority of her patients are people who are uninsured or underinsured.
One of those patients is Alex Salazar. He's a transgender male who transitioned two years ago.
"My insurance typically would cover any type of medical care necessary. However, it has a trans-exclusion policy so any of my medical care is basically excluded when it comes to trans care which is pretty much everything," Salazar explained.
Patients come from as far as Maryville, Missouri. Grimstad believes the Kansas City area is, "Kind of becoming a hub for LGBTQ community in the Midwest."
The biggest thing Grimstad does is hormone therapy. She also works at the transgender clinic for free.
Salazar said, "Every time I come here, there are people waiting to come see her. They're not going to judge where you're coming from either financially, socially or economically. And they're not going to judge you as a trans person in general. It's really kind of a godsend that we have a clinic like this."
The clinic is open on the 2nd Tuesday and 4th Thursday of the month from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Broadway location of the KC CARE clinic.
