Visiting a hospital emergency room for medical attention can make anyone feel vulnerable. But for transgender patients, the experience can be even more harrowing. Gaps in staff knowledge about transgender health contribute to patients’ uncertainty about receiving prejudice-free, competent care. That in turn leads to alarming statistics about the well-being of the transgender community.
Today, roughly 0.6 to 0.7 percent of the American population identifies as transgender, and these people have disproportionately high rates of illness and death—in part due to widespread reluctance to seek out emergency treatment and even routine checkups over concerns about the quality of care. (Here's how science is helping us understand gender.)
In a study in the February edition of the Annals of Emergency Medicine, transgender adults who visited the ER overwhelmingly reported that health care providers lacked competency in issues specific to the transgender community. For instance, many providers did not understand the meaning of “transgender,” and they lacked experience with and knowledge in trans-specific treatment, such as the effects of hormone therapy or complications from reassignment surgery.