Gender-affirming care provided to cisgender patients highlights bias against transgender patients, say researchers

Gender-affirming care, such as testosterone therapy and chest surgery, is routinely provided to cisgender patients while legislation in more than 15 states aims to curtail clinician’s authority to provide the same interventions to transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) patients.

According to the authors of a commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine, these gender-affirming procedures are endorsed by every major medical association as standard of care and should be available to all patients without discrimination.

The authors from the Institute for Bioethics and Health Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, demonstrate their point with testosterone therapy and chest surgery because both procedures hold gender affirmation as a goal and share the qualities of being initiated by the patient and evaluated on psychosocial outcomes.

Systematic reviews of gender-affirming hormone therapy and surgery for TGD patients report improvements in psychosocial outcomes in many of the same metrics used to evaluate outcomes in cisgender gender-affirming care, including low rates of complications and psychosocial benefits. A look at these procedures shows how current medical practice already provides gender-affirming care for many cisgender patients. Considering how they have been treated differently in practice and policy reveals discrimination being made between categories of people, the authors note.