Transgender Contemporary Status of Health Research

Transgender Contemporary Status on Health
Name
Institution
Transgender Contemporary Status on Health
Introduction
Transgender is a phrase that is used to refer to the aspect of an individual adopting a gender identity that is different from what they were assigned at birth. For a long time, failing to conform to one’s gender has until recently been considered as a mental pathology by the psychiatric community. Even though there has been a lot of improvement in as far as the manner in which transgender people are treated in the society, there are still a lot of inequalities when it comes to the offering of services to this group of people. One of the areas that have demonstrated inequality in the treatment of transgendered people is in the provision of health.
According to Melendez, et al., (2013), transgender people mostly those that are in the low economic category as well as transgender people of color have reported a high level of discrimination when it comes to accessing quality and comprehensive care as compared to other sexual minorities. According to this research, 19% of respondents have reported being denied access to health care due to their sexual orientation while 28% of individuals have reported that they have been forced to postpone care after they were disrespected and verbally abused while trying to access care. This has also forced 33% of transgender people to postpone acquiring preventive care. According to statistics, 19% of transgender people do not have access to health insurance coverage as compared to only 15% of cisgender people that do not have health coverage. An even lower percentage of the population received employment based insurance as compared to cisgender people mainly due to the loss of employment for the first category (Melendez, et al., 2013).
According to Herbst, et al (2008), transgender people have been reported as being more prone to acquiring AIDs and using drugs, alcohol, or smoking as a means to handle the discrimination that they get from the society. The suicide attempt among transgender people stands at 41% as compared to only 1.6% of the general population. With the increase in HIV cases as well as the inability to access healthcare, transgender people are at more risk of dying from diseases that could be managed than the other section of the population.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 went a long way in eliminating some of the biases that had existed in the provision of health care to transgender people. Due to the increased probability of losing employment, more transgender people are relying on Medicare for the provision of health care. Although Medicare covers both routine care and hormonal treatment, intersex surgery is not covered. Today, many transgender people elect to have sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in order to prevent gender dysphoria. Although SRS has been termed as capable of making transgender people to feel good about their bodies, the procedure is not covered by Medicare as it is considered to be unnecessary (Melendez, et al., 2013).
Over the years, the law has tried to deal with the inequalities that emerge in the provision of health care for transgender people in the society. In 2014, the ACA abolished the policy that denied care to transgender people on the basis that it was a preexisting condition. Despite this abolishment, the rate at which transgender people seek for health care has not increased by any significant margin. This means that the issues that have characterized the provision of health care to transgender people are still existent and need to be addressed (Bradford, et al., 2015).
One of the areas where there has been a lot of bias in the offering of care to transgender ...