|
 About 42 percent of female-to-male transgender adults reported
verbal harassment, physical assault or denial of equal treatment in
a doctor's office or hospital, the researchers report.
"Over a third of participants in the study were blatantly mistreated
when they tried to get healthcare," said Deirdre Shires of Wayne
State University in Detroit.
She and co-author Kim Jaffee write in the journal Health and Social
Work that past research found transgender people often face
discrimination or harassment in various areas of life, including
healthcare.
The little research that does exists tends to focus on
male-to-female transgender people, they write. For this study, they
focused instead on female-to-male people.
Their data came from a 2008-2009 survey of 1,711 female-to-male
transgender people from the U.S. and its territories. Most were ages
25 to 44.
Over three quarters lived full-time as their nonbirth gender. A
similar proportion reported some type of medical gender transition.
Asked about experiences in doctors' offices or hospitals, 28 percent
said they'd been denied equal treatment, about 32 percent reported
verbal harassment, and about 1 percent reported physical assaults.
Shires emphasized that it's not clear who discriminated against the
participants. Additionally, she said, the results may not apply to
the entire transgender community.
One researcher not involved with the study told Reuters Health by
email that she wasn't surprised by the findings.
If anything, the study may underestimate the problem, "because the
sample was skewed towards young, white, college-educated people with
jobs and private health insurance," said Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth,
a psychiatrist at New York University in New York City.
"If 42 percent of that group is reporting discrimination, the number
may be even higher for others," said Erickson-Schroth, who is the
editor of the book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves.
A next step, Shires said, would be to find ways to improve
healthcare experiences for transgender people.
For example, she said, it's still difficult for many transgender
people to identify themselves on medical forms as anything other
than male or female.
[to top of second column] |
"At every point in the healthcare system if you’re transgender there
is no place for you," she said. "There is no way to identify
yourself and it’s a vicious cycle."
Erickson-Schroth pointed out that 65 survey participants said they
never accessed care at a doctor's office or hospital.
"Though this is a small number, I can't help but wonder if they
avoided care completely because they feared harassment or
discrimination," she said.
While the medical community is beginning to make changes to improve
care for transgender people, Erickson-Schroth said progress is slow.
"The most important step the medical community needs to take toward
ending discrimination against transgender people in clinical
settings is educating providers," she said.
Previous research found that medical schools only spend an average
of five hours on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Some
schools never discuss the topic at all.
The education of healthcare providers should start in school, said
Erickson-Schroth, but shouldn't end there.
"It should happen in hospitals and clinics as well," she said.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)
and GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality have
searchable databases of providers with an interest or expertise in
working with transgender people, Erickson-Schroth said.
Also, she pointed out, people can often report discrimination to
clinics and hospitals, or they can contact organizations such as the
National Center for Transgender Equality or the Transgender Law
Center.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1x1ube1 Health and Social Work, online March
3, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
