Oakland, California resident Roscoe Rike has been picking up his prescriptions from the Walgreens on Telegraph Avenue for the last three years -- including his HRT medication, short for "hormone replacement therapy," usually taken by transgender men. So when a pharmacist he didn't recognize asked him what the medication was for, he said, in a now-deleted Reddit post, a red flag went up in his mind.
“I told him I was pretty sure that it wasn’t any of his business,” Rike relayed to the local news network KRON. He says that the pharmacist responded, saying he would be unable to give Rike his prescription because of the employee's "religious beliefs."
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At this point in the interaction, Rike began recording on his phone. “So right now you’re telling me that you’re going to deny me my medication because of your personal religion, you’re not my [expletive] doctor,” Rike says.
The pharmacist tells Rike he can come back later and get his prescription from another pharmacist. Rike then asked for a manager, whom Rike says “apologized profusely, as did a few of the other workers.” The manager was able to fill the prescription, and Rike says he intends to file a formal complaint with Walgreens.
As laws affecting access to transgender healthcare continue to bounce around state legislatures, these kinds of instances, of what some consider medical discrimination, aren't the first time Walgreens has come under fire for allowing employees to refuse service. Almost one year ago, many were calling for a Walgreens boycott in response to claims that pharmacy employees were refusing customers' birth control on personal religious grounds.
A Walgreens spokesperson told KRON that it's unable to comment on individual patient interactions due to privacy, but the matter is under review.
