Luna Bastos is a young transgender autistic woman living in Portugal.
It can be hard to be trans (or autistic) even when you get the best of health support. It becomes extremely hard when the people who are supposed to help you instead do their best to put your life on hold, using brute force to achieve that goal.
The doctors at the psychiatric hospital at Tomar have repeatedly hospitalized Luna against her will. They have given her antipsychotic drugs in order to keep her calm and docile.
They do not recognize her gender dysphoria. Indeed, they have not provided her with any kind of transgender health care. Nor have they asked experts on gender issues or gender incongruence for help.
They have diagnosed her as being on the autism spectrum (which she is), but they have not provided her with any relevant assistance in that respect, as in – for instance – therapy helping her to live with being on the spectrum.
All of this has lead to a kind of negative feedback loop. Their disrespect for Luna and the lack of proper supports has obviously made Luna angry. That anger is then used as argument for sedating her.
Luna says:
“The pills make me super sleepy and drowsy, so I take them before I sleep or when I am having a seizure. My sister did some searching and found that it was the Clozapine that causes convulsions the most.”
That is the medicine currently prescribed by the hospital doctors.
The pills she wished they would have given her are the ones of a regular hormone replacement treatment. She is convinced transitioning would make her happy, and therefore also less aggressive.
We will argue that the treatment Luna has been given violates the EU Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and the Portuguese Charter of the Rights and Duties of Patients. The treatment is also in violation of the Portuguese Law of Mental Health , especially as regards the duty to inform and consult patients in a meaningful manner.
We are the members of the steering committee of The Friends of Luna, an international network set up to help her get a better life where she is respected for who she is.
So far we have not been able to get her the medical, social or legal assistance she needs and deserves. We have have come to the conclusion that the only way we can get the Portuguese health system to treat Luna in a compassionate and meaningful way is by legal means. Lawyers are expensive, also in Portugal, which is why we have set up a crowdfunding page, asking you for your help. Any amount will do!
Go to Luna’s crowdfunding page and help her get the legal help she needs!