OPINION When I first came out as a transgender man in the mid 1990s, I quickly realized that I would have to pay out-of-pocket for the health care I needed.

Nearly every insurance plan has outdated exclusions that bar transgender people from receiving medically necessary health care. Everything from cancer screenings to the care related to gender transition is commonly excluded, despite being provided without exclusion to non-transgender health insurance customers.Read more »

caitlin@sfbg.com

HERBWISE The night before our interview, Elder Freeman spoke alongside Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidate (and beloved sitcom sassmouth) Roseanne Barr, 2008 Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, and others about the political possibilities of marijuana at a panel discussion held inside Oaksterdam University.Read more »

yael@sfbg.com

"I was 18 years old the first time they locked me up in a psych ward."

So begins "The Bipolar World," an article published in the Bay Guardian's literature section 10 years ago, on September 18, 2002. The writer, Sascha Altman DuBrul, tells the story of his life. He'd been arrested walking on New York subway tracks after the year he first experienced what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder.Read more »

EDITORIAL California Pacific Medical Center wants to build a fancy new hospital in San Francisco without meeting the city's demands for housing, transportation, and health-care mitigations. And the arrogant leadership at the private nonprofit thinks it can hold the city hostage: If the mayor and the supervisors don't approve the new medical complex on Van Ness Avenue, CPMC has threatened to close St. Luke's — threatening a critical part of the local health infrastructure.Read more »

yael@sfbg.com

When the Human Rights Campaign, the national LGBT rights group, released its latest scorecard, rating companies by their support for LGBT issues, the healthcare giant Kaiser scored 100 percent. In June, the company's float in the San Francisco Pride Parade was packed with happy employees.

But as the float passed through the streets, it was met by a group of protesters. Pride at Work complained, loudly, that Kaiser — for all its efforts to work with the community — excludes transgender care from its standard policies.Read more »