Transgender EuroStudy – Legal Survey and Focus ... - ILGA Europe

Transgender EuroStudy:
Legal Survey and Focus on the
Transgender Experience of Health Care
10 years ago. There is also a 6% difference between those on higher incomes when compared to the
lower income group, as well as a 5% difference between the skilled and unskilled group.
The narratives from the focus group and survey suggested that trans people avoid accessing
routine healthcare because they anticipated prejudicial treatment from healthcare professionals.
Indeed, one translator from the French focus group reported that ‘the theme of not daring to go see a
doctor for any sort of care, even those unrelated to being trans, for fear of transphobia is a recurrent
one for both FTMs and MTFs’.
A participant in the Austrian focus group said:
I don’t see the doctor if I don’t really have to. I don’t see the dentist, I don’t see the gynaecologist,
since decades, and if I have an accident, I try not to go to the hospital... I think I have less experiences
because I just don’t go there, so I practise some kind of avoidance strategy.
A participant in the focus group in Italy said:
…when I go to use health services I myself am on guard, like, what will they say to me, what will
happen, will they accept me, in which section are they going to put me So, all these fears, influence
my ability to access health care, so often, I’ve avoided going, use health care services, exactly to avoid
these fears, paranoia.
And a French survey respondent wrote:
…it is not easy for me to go see a doctor for fear of his/her potential transphobic reactions.
Thus, trans people are avoiding accessing routine treatment from health care professionals for
fear of an adverse reaction to being trans from healthcare professionals.
Another theme that emerged out of the narratives from the survey and focus groups which also
may be an explanation of the previous responses is the pathologisation of trans people, due to it
being classified with mental health conditions.
One Finnish survey respondent wrote:
As a trans person I have been labelled with a negative stigma of a mental patient by some health
care personnel.
A focus group participant in France said:
It is absolutely necessary that transsexualism should be removed from the list of mental illnesses
because we constantly feel obliged to justify ourselves to the health professionals.
A Dutch survey respondent wrote:
I often have the feeling that health care professionals do not take me seriously because of my trans
identity and see me as a psychiatric case.
Trans people then anticipate a negative response from healthcare professionals when accessing
non trans-related healthcare, which may be linked to the classification of trans as a mental illness.