Injustice at Every Turn -- Part III: Health Care

--By Robyn

Scarlet Letter

This is the fourth in a series. The first two parts of my review of the report Injustice at Every Turn (pdf) were Who we are -- by the numbers, Part I: Education, and Part II: Employment. Today we move on to health care.

Access to health care is a fundamental human right that is regularly denied to transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Transgender and gender non-conforming people frequently experience discrimination when accessing health care, from disrespect and harassment to violence and outright denial of service. Participants in our study reported barriers to care whether seeking preventive medicine, routine and emergency care, or transgender-related services. These realities, combined with widespread provider ignorance about the health needs of transgender and gender non-conforming people, deter them from seeking and receiving quality health care.

Who we are...by the numbers

--by Robyn

Scarlet Letter

Every day, transgender and gender non-conforming people bear the brunt of social and economic marginalization due to discrimination based on their gender identity or expression. Advocates confront this reality regularly working with transgender people who have lost housing, been fired from jobs, experienced mistreatment and violence, or been unable to access the health care they need. Too often, policymakers, service providers, the media and society at large have dismissed or discounted the needs of transgender and gender non-conforming people, and a lack of hard data on the scope of anti-transgender discrimination has hampered the work to make substantive policy changes to address these needs.

So begins the introduction to the report Injustice at Every Turn: A report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which was jointly released Friday by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality. At 222 pages and 43 megs, it is unlikely that too many people will investigate more than the Executive Summary, which indeed is where early reporters opted to stop. But it is Saturday and there is wintry mix expected, so here I am.

This part just is about the numbers...covering about 30 pages of the report. More will come, especially the conclusions that can be drawn, in the future.