Ricky García is a bisexual genderqueer Chicana/o that has been living with Type 2 diabetes for 30 years. An advocate for people with disabilities at an independent living center in Claremont, Calif., Garcia knows firsthand the struggles that many transgender and gender variant Latina/os face when living with diabetes.

A native of East Los Angeles, Garcia comes from a family with a long history of diabetes. Before dying at 91, Garcia’s maternal grandmother lived 20 years without legs. Garcia’s father died in his early 40s from diabetes related complications. Because of this, Garcia’s family was very cautious.

“I was always checked for diabetes by my grandmother and father as a child. They were concerned about my status because they lived with the fear that I would get it.”

Through diet and exercise Garcia was able to keep diabetes away as a child. It wasn’t until Garcia’s last pregnancy that Garcia was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and was prescribed insulin.

“This,” Garcia said, “was the beginning of a downward battle with my diagnosis.”

Diabetes in the LGBTQ Community
There are no hard numbers for the rate of diabetes in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Latina/o community. However, based on statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of overall diabetes rates in the Latina/o community, one can estimate that close to 300,000 LGBTQ Latina/os are currently living with diabetes. For LGBTQ Latina/os with diabetes, the intersection of race, gender and sexuality has its own set of challenges.

Diabetes can be particularly hard on transgender people, especially those on gender affirming hormone therapy. Because hormones often affect sugar levels in the blood, some physicians recommend that people stop taking them. For trans people, this may be a hard sell.

“A trans person ...