We live in the humanistic society that is expected to be tolerant and cultivate such values as democracy, equality, etc. The results of this shift of priorities could already be seen. Depressed minorities became able to demonstrate their unique peculiarities and eliminate barriers that previously limited their lives. Moreover, we could state the fact that individuals become more tolerant to people who differ from them and have some unusual features.
For this reason, the improvement in this sphere could be observed. Unfortunately, the situation still remains not perfect, and there are many crucial issues that still should be solved. The question of gender and self-identification could be considered one of these topics. Despite the tendency towards the recognition of the rights of sex minorities, society lacks comprehending and tolerance if to speak about transgender or people who altered their gender under the impact of the peculiarities of their psyche.
The given issue is not new. The history of humanity provides us with numerous examples of men wearing women clothes and vice versa. However, only today the current level of science and scientific progress provides these people with an opportunity to alter their gender and act in accordance with the patterns put in their psyche.
The process is very complex, expensive, and painful as the surgery should be accompanied by a hormonotherapy. Yet, they still make the decision to pass through the procedure because of the impossibility to live being not able to associate their bodies with their behaviors. Unfortunately, very often their lives remain unhappy because of the numerous challenges that appear. For instance, transgender patients could face the first obstacles in hospitals or other healthcare units as the majority of health workers are not ready to work with this sort of patients.
One of the main problems that are related to the given sphere is the lack of specific knowledge and experience needed for health workers to be able to provide their services in the appropriate way (Ellin, 2016). That fact is that the work with the transgenders is a comparatively new kind of activity that demands additional information about the peculiarities of their endocrine profile and postoperative recovery. Additionally, there is a great need for a specific psychological approach that should be explored to decrease the level of stress and assist patients in their recovery. However, very often specialists do not possess this data and are not able to work with transgenders in an appropriate way. It results in the poor outcomes, increased number of misunderstandings, and appearance of numerous problems that patients belonging to this group should overcome.
Another problem peculiar the sphere also comes from the lack of knowledge. The fact is that very often healthcare workers confuse the gender of patients who experienced hormonotherapy and surgery. It promotes the appearance of several problems. First of all, the above-mentioned misunderstanding could cause a great psychological trauma to a patient because he/she hopes to alter his/her gender and start a new life (Ellin, 2016).
However, a health worker could destroy the positive effect by treating a patient in terms of his/her past gender. Moreover, the given confusion could also result in the appearance of numerous misunderstandings with medication and other procedures. For this reason, it becomes extremely important to consider peculiarities of every patient and guarantee that he/she will be treated in an appropriate way.
Finally, a number of transgender patients admit cases of discrimination from the health care workers (Allday, 2014). In accordance with the statistics, from 30% to 60% of the representatives of this group face biased attitude (Allday, 2014). It is a very threatening tendency because discrimination deteriorates the final results and triggers the appearance of numerous conflicts between a health worker and a patient. Furthermore, several transgender patients report the case of mistreatment or wrong medication choice because of a specialists lack of motivation to work with a patient in an appropriate way (Ellin, 2016). The combination of these factors cultivates mistrust and contributes to the preservation of the current state of the problem.
Nevertheless, the transgender community could not ignore the above-mentioned problems. Considering the unique importance of the issue for the modern world, members of this community initiate numerous movements to gather support and attract peoples attention to the problem. Moreover, there are special groups that are focused on the provision of the physiological assistance to people who altered their gender and started to investigate their new bodies. The functioning of these communities is extremely important for individuals who have the similar problems as it encourages them to act and forget their fear of being alone.
Altogether, the problem of transgender patients remains topical today. Very often these people face various problems and challenges that come from the unusual character of their mentalities and desires. Unfortunately, many of these problems are created by health workers who are not able to provide an appropriate care because of the lack of the needed knowledge and biased attitude to patients who want to alter their gender.
References
Allday, E. (2014). Transgender patients face challenges in health care.
Ellin, A. (2016). Transgender patients face challenges at the hospital. The New York Times.