ERs don’t have access to somebody’s medical records. I had to get into an actual argument with a pharmacist who wanted to give me a vaccine I wasn’t due for right then because my pharmacist didn’t know my doctor had already given it to me.

This is a very real problem that needs to be fixed in some sensitive way.

Trans people want the gender marker on their ID to read their real gender and they have the right to that. I suspect one answer in the future will be for everyone to carry some kind of medical ID that includes all the stuff ER docs need to know on a chip and can be read. So it could include things like “Has a uterus” alongside “allergic to penicillin” and “taking blood thinners.”

Sharing people’s medical records without their explicit consent is rightly illegal, but there are ways we can balance these things.