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The Rainbow Clinic, a new LGBTQIA+ clinic at the Columbus Free Clinic, will open its doors to patients for the first time Thursday. Credit: Austin Mucchetti | Lantern Reporter

The Rainbow Clinic, a student-run LGBTQ+ clinic within the Columbus Free Clinic, will open its doors to patients for the first time Thursday. 

The Rainbow Clinic’s services are free of charge and will include primary care, checkups, gynecological services, urology services, STI and STD testing and assistance with obtaining insurance coverage, according to the Columbus Free Clinic’s Instagram. Gabe Lee, a third-year in biomedical engineering and founder of the Rainbow Clinic, said it was important to him to ensure that safe, comfortable services are available to the LGBTQ+ community. 

“There isn’t really a good protocol in general on things such as collecting pronouns, taking a sexual history. Like, people have training in the medical fields, but it’s not often implemented,” Lee said. “Unless the patient says they’re queer, they will not be doing that process, and I think that’s kind of a problem because it doesn’t normalize that practice.” 

Lee, who has been volunteering at the Columbus Free Clinic for the last three years during his time at Ohio State, said the clinic’s mission is to provide free care, specifically to the LGBTQ+ community, to fill a gap in existing health care. 

“When we have conversations about people who require free clinic care, we often look to the uninsured,” Lee said. “But that’s not always the case, as people who have difficult financial situations and not the best insurance might be able to gain some coverage on certain procedures, but perhaps that insurance doesn’t cover more elective procedures, or what they consider cosmetic.”

According to The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, gender-affirming care is not elective. 

“These reconstructive procedures are not optional in any meaningful sense, but are understood to be medically necessary for the treatment of the diagnosed condition,” according to its Medical Necessity statement. “In some cases, such surgery is the only effective treatment for the condition, and for some people genital surgery is essential and life-saving.”

Lee said the barriers that exist in health care for the LGBTQ+ community motivated him to start the Rainbow Clinic.

“Those types of barriers, I think, made it even more important for this project to start and for me to kind of push for it because if I didn’t, then these patients would continue just, like, either not going to get health care, or they’d be going to a place that might make them feel a little more uncomfortable,” Lee said. 

Brianna VanNoy, a first-year in medicine, said she is a specialty clinic coordinator at the Columbus Free Clinic, where she is responsible for recruiting patients, providers and volunteers as well as making sure the clinic has all the necessary materials. 

VanNoy said although the services provided — such as general services, STI testing and cervical cancer screenings — are similar to the ones provided by the larger clinic, the Rainbow Clinic aims to ensure accommodations for the queer community. 

“I think that the Rainbow Clinic is really a place where folks from the queer community can come and know that they are getting sort of nonjudgmental, inclusive care by experienced providers,” VanNoy said.

The Rainbow Clinic offers both lab and pharmacy services, such as rapid HIV tests, that are not commonly offered at other free clinics in the area because the Columbus Free Clinic has an on-site pharmacy and lab, she said. 

Kat Rogers, a second-year graduate student in social work, is a social worker at the Columbus Free Clinic. She and Lee noticed a fair amount of LGBTQ+ individuals coming into the clinic who lack access to consistent, supportive care.

“We’re just hoping to get LGBTQ patients in the clinic and really comfortable,” Rogers said.

Rogers said she hopes to work with queer patients as a psychologist and a therapist in the future.

“It’s really important for me to create an environment in which people feel comfortable being themselves and getting the proper care,” Rogers said. “So, like, personally, in general, especially with everything going on in the world right now, in America and with legislation, it’s really pertinent that queer people are seen and valued and heard right now and taken care of.”

The Columbus Free Clinic is located in the Ohio State Primary Care Thomas Rardin building at 2231 N. High St. In-person or telehealth visits can both be scheduled by appointment online, with appointments available from 5:45-9 p.m. on Thursdays.