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The Anchor Health Initiative started in a supply closet.
Patricia Chadwick, A.C. Demidont, Jean Doyen de Montaillou and David Grimes founded Anchor Health on May 4, 2016, — which provides non-discriminatory healthcare to the LGBTQ+ community. They found the resources for LGBTQ+ health care to be inadequate, so they came together to form AHI as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Demidont, who holds a doctorate of medicine from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine according to her LinkedIn, saw patients in Anchor Health’s first office in November 2016.
A supply closet in the New Haven Department of Public Health building.
Chris Adams, a gay man and the practice manager of Anchor Health, found out about Demidont and Anchor Health through one of her patients and began seeing her.
“I was still seeing (a) primary care provider who didn’t know anything about me,” Adams said. “Going to that first appointment, I didn’t know that healthcare could exist in that way.”
The healthcare Adams received prior to AHI was ill-prepared to help LGBTQ+ patients. On average, medical students receive under five hours of training on LGBTQ+ issues throughout their medical education, according to the National LGBT Cancer Network.
“There’s harm to be had when that is not accessible to patients easily,” Adams said. “We need to exist to be able to reduce harm and unwanted outcomes as much as we can.”
William Remington, 26, who is gay and the head of nursing at Anchor Health, faced that harm by being outrightly discriminated against when he lost his virginity.
“My pediatrician told my mom I was a prostitute when I lost my virginity.”
William Remington
Experiences like Remington’s are common when it comes to treating LGBTQ+ patients. “Twenty-one percent (of LGBTQ+ people) said a doctor or other health care provider used harsh or abusive language when treating them,” the Center for American Progress says.
Coupled with the stigma around HIV due to the AIDS epidemic, national discrimination against transgender people and ignorance around treating LGBTQ+ peoples, Anchor Health provides the LGBTQ+ community the ability to receive safe, unbiased and non-discriminatory healthcare. It treats between 3,500 and 4,000 people — a number that has increased exponentially over the past few years, Remington said.
“People are more comfortable being out,” Remington said. “Being marketed as a safe space for everybody is driving that.”
In the Hamden office, one of two locations along with Stamford, pride flags hang on the walls and swing from the breeze of AHI patients and workers walking by. Fliers for LGBTQ+ events around the Hamden-New Haven hang on a bulletin board and stickers of pronouns are available for the taking after appointments.
When you first arrive at the AHI website, in bold letters at the top it says “Health care for queer people, by queer people.” There’s pictures of the transgender and progress pride flags. There are people of all ethnicities and gender identities posing together on the website.
Neither AHI locations are currently accepting new patients — unless someone meets certain specifications. For example, if someone needs puberty blockers, are coming from a state that’s banned gender-affirming care or if someone is at risk of or living with HIV.
There are around 1.6 million transgender people in the U.S., and some are forced to come to Anchor Health from southern states to receive gender-affirming healthcare.
“There’s really been an explosion in the number of transgender people,” Maeve Duvally, who is on the board of directors and identifies as a transgender woman, said. “It’s only exacerbated by what’s going on in some of those states like Florida and Texas, you’re getting people from those states not being able to access healthcare, so they’re coming up here.”
Earlier this year, Florida and Texas banned and criminalized gender-affirming care for children transitioning their gender. Florida also passed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill in March 2022, prohibiting public schools from teaching about gender and sexual identities. Texas passed bills banning hormone therapy for transgender children in September 2023.
Some people that aren’t in the LGBTQ+ community come to Anchor Health because they see it as a safe space.
“They think it’s more privacy, we’re a clinic, they don’t expect their friends to be here,” Remington said. “Also, we’re pretty good at our job compared to primary care. We do things quicker.”
Anchor Health takes a multi-faceted approach when treating LGBTQ+ patients. It starts with who the Initiative hires.
“The majority (of Anchor Health employees) are part of the community and everyone is passionate about the community and the mission for the work,” Adams said.
Approximately 75% of Anchor Health employees are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
From there, Anchor Health staff members undergo multiple hours of social training to further learn how to successfully treat LGBTQ+ patients. For example, if an employee uses someone’s dead name (a transgender person’s name before their transition) or misgender someone, Anchor Health teaches them to not make a big deal of it. Just correct it and move on.
“Being able for (AHI employees) to be with the patients and the patients recognizing that they have some type of wherewithal of what’s going on makes them very comfortable,” Remington said.
Another pillar of Anchor Health’s treatment of LGBTQ+ patients is not using a one-size-fits-all approach when treating people. You realize where someone is — their age, weight and activity level taken into account — and set realistic goals to get them to a better place.
“I’m not going to give someone a laundry list of tasks like ‘can’t eat this, can’t eat this, can’t eat this, change your entire diet, change your entire lifestyle right now,’” Remington said. “That’s what I strive against.”
Remington emphasized not shaming someone when treating someone who has contracted HIV.
“I don’t want to make people feel bad for being where they’re at,” Remington said. “Most people who have gotten HIV weren’t doing anything that would be looked at crazy. You met someone online, who in our generation hasn’t? You went and hooked up; that’s the new normal now.”
Coinciding with setting realistic expectations is case management, a process that helps connect people to resources — for example, housing, furniture, therapy, food — or other things that could better their quality of life.
“It’s finding the barriers that make someone not able to go to the doctor or can’t afford to go to the doctor and we help overcome those barriers,” Caroline Chadwick, the head of case management and public policy, said.
Part of Caroline Chadwick’s job as case manager is to make sure that those with HIV get the resources they need, with a significant portion of the funding coming from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program.
The program provides funds to states, cities and counties to support people with HIV.
“The point of Ryan White is that you will stay virally suppressed or reach viral suppression,” Caroline said. “That means making sure you have housing, access to food, access to transportation to your appointments … a third of my job is HIV case management.”
Anchor Health also has its own pharmacy — located at the Stamford branch — where it supplies AHI patients with medication.
“We lose money on every prescription, because we mail all of our prescriptions out and Medicaid reimburses us very, very little,” Patricia Chadwick said. “That being said, our mission is to serve everyone. We will find ways to raise the money to make sure that we serve everyone.”
Serving everyone also means reaching out to the Hamden-New Haven community, something that is evident in the photos of people in the community holding up frames that say “I believe in trans joy,” or “I believe in queer health care.”
“Just being able to go and table a pride event with your coworkers, it’s really fun,” Adams said. “Being able to interact with the community at an event is really cool.”
The reason for AHI existing in the first place is community. The reason Anchor Health runs a pharmacy that loses money is for the community. A lot of what the initiative does is to help the LGBTQ+ community, all 3,500 to 4,000.
“Making the care so accessible, it really has a positive impact on the patients that are able to access us,” Adams said.