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Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists

BACKGROUND: Transgender men are a marginalized population with unique health care needs. However, their usage of health services is low because of considerable discrimination. A major factor in their avoidance is patient-provider interactions. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 102 transge...

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Autores principales: Lifshitz, Dror, Yaish, Iris, Wagner-Kolasko, Gal, Greenman, Yona, Sofer, Yael, Alpern, Sharon, Groutz, Asnat, Azem, Foad, Amir, Hadar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8840634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35148780
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-022-00522-z
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author Lifshitz, Dror
Yaish, Iris
Wagner-Kolasko, Gal
Greenman, Yona
Sofer, Yael
Alpern, Sharon
Groutz, Asnat
Azem, Foad
Amir, Hadar
author_facet Lifshitz, Dror
Yaish, Iris
Wagner-Kolasko, Gal
Greenman, Yona
Sofer, Yael
Alpern, Sharon
Groutz, Asnat
Azem, Foad
Amir, Hadar
author_sort Lifshitz, Dror
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Transgender men are a marginalized population with unique health care needs. However, their usage of health services is low because of considerable discrimination. A major factor in their avoidance is patient-provider interactions. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 102 transgender men who anonymously completed a 55-item questionnaire in clinic, between 10/2017 and 01/2019. In addition, 92 transgender women filled out the part about family physician’s preferences. We examined which characteristics transgender men prefer in their obstetricians/gynecologists in order to promote their usage of healthcare services. RESULTS: A small majority of the transgender men (54.1%) had no gender preference for their obstetrician/gynecologist, while 42.9% preferred a female obstetrician/gynecologist and 3.1% preferred a male obstetrician/gynecologist. Most transgender men with a same-gender preference preferred female obstetricians/gynecologists for both invasive procedures (e.g., pelvic examination, 97.4%) and non-invasive procedures (e.g., cesarean section, 60%). The reasons for preferences regarding invasive procedures were feeling comfortable, embarrassment and feeling that female obstetricians/gynecologists are gentler. Transgender men who preferred female obstetricians/gynecologists ranked ability (90.5%), sexual tolerance (92.9%) and gender identity tolerance (90.5%) as the top three desirable qualities of obstetricians/gynecologists, while the responders who did not prefer female ranked ability (94.6%), experience (92.9%) and knowledge (92.9%) as the top three qualities. Transgender men with female preferences considered female obstetricians/gynecologists to be more accepting of gender identity compared to the responders that did not prefer females (47.5% vs. 9.1%, P < .001).. CONCLUSION: A small majority of the transgender men exhibited no gender preference when choosing an obstetrician/gynecologist, although 42.9% preferred females. The latter choice was associated with the assumption that female obstetricians/gynecologists are more tolerant towards their transgender men patients. Educating the medical staff about their special needs and establishing dedicated SGM centers staffed with high percentages of female healthcare providers are highly recommended.
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spelling pubmed-88406342022-02-16 Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists Lifshitz, Dror Yaish, Iris Wagner-Kolasko, Gal Greenman, Yona Sofer, Yael Alpern, Sharon Groutz, Asnat Azem, Foad Amir, Hadar Isr J Health Policy Res Original Research Article BACKGROUND: Transgender men are a marginalized population with unique health care needs. However, their usage of health services is low because of considerable discrimination. A major factor in their avoidance is patient-provider interactions. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 102 transgender men who anonymously completed a 55-item questionnaire in clinic, between 10/2017 and 01/2019. In addition, 92 transgender women filled out the part about family physician’s preferences. We examined which characteristics transgender men prefer in their obstetricians/gynecologists in order to promote their usage of healthcare services. RESULTS: A small majority of the transgender men (54.1%) had no gender preference for their obstetrician/gynecologist, while 42.9% preferred a female obstetrician/gynecologist and 3.1% preferred a male obstetrician/gynecologist. Most transgender men with a same-gender preference preferred female obstetricians/gynecologists for both invasive procedures (e.g., pelvic examination, 97.4%) and non-invasive procedures (e.g., cesarean section, 60%). The reasons for preferences regarding invasive procedures were feeling comfortable, embarrassment and feeling that female obstetricians/gynecologists are gentler. Transgender men who preferred female obstetricians/gynecologists ranked ability (90.5%), sexual tolerance (92.9%) and gender identity tolerance (90.5%) as the top three desirable qualities of obstetricians/gynecologists, while the responders who did not prefer female ranked ability (94.6%), experience (92.9%) and knowledge (92.9%) as the top three qualities. Transgender men with female preferences considered female obstetricians/gynecologists to be more accepting of gender identity compared to the responders that did not prefer females (47.5% vs. 9.1%, P < .001).. CONCLUSION: A small majority of the transgender men exhibited no gender preference when choosing an obstetrician/gynecologist, although 42.9% preferred females. The latter choice was associated with the assumption that female obstetricians/gynecologists are more tolerant towards their transgender men patients. Educating the medical staff about their special needs and establishing dedicated SGM centers staffed with high percentages of female healthcare providers are highly recommended. BioMed Central 2022-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8840634/ /pubmed/35148780 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-022-00522-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Original Research Article
Lifshitz, Dror
Yaish, Iris
Wagner-Kolasko, Gal
Greenman, Yona
Sofer, Yael
Alpern, Sharon
Groutz, Asnat
Azem, Foad
Amir, Hadar
Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title_full Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title_fullStr Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title_full_unstemmed Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title_short Transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
title_sort transgender men's preferences when choosing obstetricians and gynecologists
topic Original Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8840634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35148780
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13584-022-00522-z
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