“We asked queer and trans young people what they wish that their healthcare providers better understood about their relationships with cannabis and mental health, and here’s what they had to say. 

When I go in to see a primary care doctor, especially as a transgender person, I’m typically going in because I need access to trans related healthcare or gender affirming care. It’s frustrating to be asked if I use any substances and to tell a doctor that I use cannabis and then have that immediately be stigmatized or be the focus of our time while I’m at the doctor’s office.

Cannabis has allowed me to be extremely confident in my body and being at peace with it. It has also allowed me to be in touch more with the community and to be able to bond over understanding being policed over cannabis use and as well as gender.

My weed consumption has less to do with having an addiction or dependency to smoking weed and more to do with the medical system’s lack of culturally appropriate and just failure to people of color and trans and queer folks, and that medical professionals should strive to and do the work to and research having more harm reductionist approaches to talking about weed.

When we call for help when we send signs, you know, when it comes to mental health especially, listen to us and take it as seriously as you would anyone else, because it’s difficult with the levels of intersectionality to be taken at face value sometimes, you know, when it comes to being Black, young, queer, and someone who copes with mental health.

Cannabis can be a really valuable means towards connection for young queer people who use it. Cannabis can be a way to connect with other queer and trans youth. And also, that just because a youth is using cannabis doesn’t mean that that is necessarily a problematic relationship.

To be able to go into a space that you know is judgment free, and is purely there to help you, and that person is purely there to help you. I’ve been met with a lot of judgment from my doctors and the healthcare system when talking about smoking and my habits. It’s really never been met with informational help and understanding or trying to understand.

I find that it helps me practice a lot of mindfulness when it comes to my gender dysphoria. It allows me to connect with my body in ways that I don’t typically feel I’m emotionally vulnerable enough to do and it allows me a moment to find comfort in my physical self because of the lack of access I have to gender affirming care.

I wish that doctors would just understand that it’s something that a lot of queer and trans people need to use because cannabis is a tool that not all of us but many of us have access to that is better than a lot of other tools to be able to help care for our mental health and care for our bodies.”