Understanding Trans Health

What does it mean for someone to be ‘trans’? What are the implications of this for healthcare provision? Drawing on the findings of an extensive research project, this book addresses urgent challenges and debates in trans health. It interweaves patient voices with social theory and autobiography, offering an innovative look at how shifting language, patient mistrust, waiting lists and professional power shape clinical encounters, and exploring what a better future might look like for trans patients.

What does it mean for someone to be ‘trans’? What are the implications of this for healthcare provision? Drawing on the findings of an extensive research project, this book addresses urgent challenges and debates in trans health. It interweaves patient voices with social theory and autobiography, offering an innovative look at how shifting language, patient mistrust, waiting lists and professional power shape clinical encounters, and exploring what a better future might look like for trans patients.

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals--often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT--are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.

Trans people in the UK currently face widespread prejudice and discrimination, from how they are described in the media to the lack of healthcare support they receive. This institutional bias is illustrated by the tragic case of Synestra de Courcy, who died following neglect and rejection from the NHS, leading her to sex work to fund her transition and dangerous self-medication. Charting Syn's life from childhood through to her untimely death aged just 23, Jane Fae exposes the gross institutional and societal discrimination trans people experience on a daily basis and its impact on the lives of trans people young and old. Promoting honest discussion and bringing these hidden issues into the light of day, this book is a must read for anyone interested in trans rights, and NHS accountability.

This book represents the vanguard of new work in the rapidly growing arena of Trans Studies. Thematically organised, it brings together studies from an international, cross-disciplinary range of contributors to address a range of questions pertinent to the emergence of trans lives and discourses. Examining the ways in which the emergence of trans challenges, develops and extends understandings of gender and reconfigures everyday lives, it asks how trans lives and discourses articulate and contest with issues of rights, education and popular common-sense. With attention to the question of how trans has shaped and been shaped by new modes of social action and networking, The Emergence of Trans also explores what the proliferation of trans representation across multiple media forms and public discourse suggests about the wider cultural moment, and considers the challenges presented for health care, social policy, gender and sexuality theory, and everyday articulations of identity. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of gender and sexuality studies, as well as activists, professionals and individuals interested in trans lives and discourses.

Filling a gap in literature and fulfilling the need for trans-focused work, TransNarratives is an interdisciplinary collection featuring narratives of transgender experiences, providing a sourcebook of a range of trans perspectives, writing styles, and trans methodological fields of applicability. The works included transcend disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of academic knowledge and creativity, actively deconstructing binaries wherever they begin to appear, whether with regard to gender, race, ability, or sexuality, or to the binary divisions that can sometimes separate academic and creative production. Calling attention to transgender writers, this unique and timely text showcases a wide variety of material, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectives, poetry and fiction that foregrounds trans experience, and first-person transgender narratives. The essays, poems, and stories cover a range of topics relevant to transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary experiences, across time, geographic location, and cultures. An important addition to the field, this groundbreaking text will serve as an essential collection of works for students and researchers in transgender studies, queer studies, and gender studies. FEATURES - Provides accessible, thematically wide-ranging, and stylistically diverse writings, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectives - Includes multi-generational perspectives and non-able-bodied subjectivities - Uniquely formatted to support a dialogue between creative and scholarly work

The number of people coming out as transgender continues to rise, and this book shows healthcare and medical practitioners how to deliver excellent primary and secondary care to gender diverse patients. This guide provides accessible and practical advice on tailoring the social and ethical aspects of practice to the needs of each individual. Beyond setting out how clinical procedures should work for gender reassignment, it explains how to use language and pronouns in a respectful way, provides information on transgender services and resources, and offers insights into the challenges commonly faced by transgender people in both medical and social contexts. Based on cutting edge research and the lived experience of the author as a non-binary person, this is essential reading for all those working to meet the needs of transgender people in healthcare settings.

This book interrogates the politics of sexual and reproductive rights from a transnational feminist perspective. Taking an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach, the book provides the reader with a nuanced and in depth understanding of the role that forces of globalization have played in women's sexual and reproductive lives in the 21st century. The book begins with an examination of the significance of transnational women's health movement(s) as a response to the convergence of social, political, and economic forces unique to the current globalized era. Subsequent chapters examine these forces as they play out in socially and geographically specific locations. The book is organized into four thematic sections: the continuing impacts of colonization on women's bodies and sexual and reproductive health; interactions between the State, the law, and sexual and reproductive rights; the ways in which migration shapes women's sexual and reproductive health experiences; and the engagement with transnational politics by women's health organizers. Within these themes, case studies of Ireland, India, Senegal, Colombia, Mexico, Uganda, and the United States are highlighted. In addition, specific issues such as sex selection and son preference, the criminalization of abortion, mental and physical health needs of migrant women, indigenous rights, and population control and family planning policies are tackled. Contributors include activists working on the ground as well as scholars and researchers. engagement with transnational politics by women's health organizers. Within these themes, case studies of Ireland, India, Senegal, Colombia, Mexico, Uganda, and the United States are highlighted. In addition, specific issues such as sex selection and son preference, the criminalization of abortion, mental and physical health needs of migrant women, indigenous rights, and population control and family planning policies are tackled. Contributors include activists working on the ground as well as scholars and researchers.