According to a research, trans people feel alienated at health centers
According to research published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health, transgender people feel alienated in medical facilities that are structured in the binary of male and female and face stigma and prejudice from healthcare professionals.
According to the research, these unfavorable encounters with medical professionals may have a detrimental impact on their emotional and general wellness.
The research “Experiences of transgender persons in Accessing Routine Healthcare Services in India: Findings from a Routine Participatory Qualitative Study” compiled the experiences of sixty-three transgender participants from various locations of India.
One participant said that medical practitioners were ignorant about the medical transition process and transgender identity. “One physician was ignorant of the distinctions between a neovagina, a vagina produced by surgery, and a vagina that is naturally occurring from birth. This demonstrated that transgender health issues are not adequately included in the medical curriculum, the participant said.
It has been claimed that some transgender volunteers were refused treatment even before they saw a doctor. Because of the stigma associated with transgender people, the researchers concluded that this demonstrated how health professionals were neglecting and excluding transgender people.
People would shoo us away and the watchman would never let us sit there at all. A trans-woman who participated in the research said, “The nurse won’t even touch our body because they feel it is obnoxious to touch the body of a trans-person.”
A few participants said that getting to a health center was difficult due to their encounters with stigma when traveling to the hospital. Many survey participants spoke about how they avoided hospitals because they felt like they would be laughed at and looked at.
The research emphasizes how transgender persons are often excluded from hospitals and clinics due to their structural design. Additionally, hospitals were mentioned as “not expecting a trans-person to come.” They claim that the reason for this is because most hospitals divide their spaces into male and female gender-binary areas, which excludes those who identify as non-binary or who don’t seem to match the traditional standards of gender expression in the binary.
Hospital settings such as wards, outpatient clinics, waiting areas, restrooms, and registration lines are often constructed with the binary genders of male and female in mind.
Transgender persons are confused about which side to choose when they enter such binary environments since, even if they identify as gender nonconforming, they run the risk of being informed they are in the “wrong place.”
The report emphasizes that registration forms often include a column for non-binary, transgender, and/or transgender patients in addition to a section for male and female individuals.
