The VA listened when this transgender veteran demanded better care. Then Trump returned

A decade ago, Giovonni Santiago asked the Department of Veterans Affairs for something groundbreaking: a place where transgender veterans, like him, could see doctors who understood them.The government listened. Now, Santiago says, it is dismantling the system he helped build.“It’s frustrating, but not surprising,” Santiago tells The Advocate. “We did all of this hard work to get here, and she’s done all of this hard work sustaining it, to see it possibly start to crumble.”The “she” is Dr. Megan McNamara, Santiago’s primary care physician of 13 years and the lead doctor at the Gender Identity Veterans Experience, or G.I.V.E., Clinic at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.Santiago served as an Air Force police officer from 2006 to 2010, while “don’t ask, don’t tell” still forced gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops to conceal who they were. Santiago identified as a lesbian then. A back injury led to his medical discharge, and he began transitioning through the VA in 2013.Related: Trump ends care network for LGBTQ+ veterans, internal email shows. Providers condemn 'cruel erasure'He says he was the first patient to tell McNamara that he was transgender. Because she worked from the women’s clinic, Santiago’s appointments could become small public spectacles. The masculine-presenting veteran would sit among women who assumed he was waiting for someone else. Then a nurse would call his name. Gio Santiago celebrates Transgender Veteran Awareness Month at a VA facility before the Trump administration returned.Courtesy Gio SantiagoMcNamara began treating more transgender veterans. Santiago referred people to her, helped form support groups and eventually addressed a room containing about 100 doctors. The Cleveland hospital had the patients and clinicians. It needed to put them together.“Just give us a wing, give us some space to do this,” Santiago recalled saying.They did. The G.I.V.E. Clinic opened in November 2015 and was described a