Justice Pays: Avoidable transgender health outcomes and access to quality care

Abstract Submission for:

Justice Pays: Avoidable transgender health outcomes and access to quality care

This paper explores the connections between access to competent, quality health care for transgender individuals and resulting health outcomes, and offers a preliminary cost-benefit analysis of providing comprehensive care for sex transition treatment versus treatment as a result of common avoidable health outcomes in the population linked to lack of access. These health outcomes include; cancers of the ovaries, uterus, and cervix resulting from masculine-presenting patients not being provided pap screens, sexually transmitted infections resulting from provider presumption of patient sexual behavior (same sex for feminine-presenting, lesbian identified individuals), HIV and Hepatitis as a result of shared needle use and street(sub-clinical)hormones for sex transition, and endocrine system disruption, clotting, cardiovascular, and liver diseases as a result of hormone treatment without medical management.

It is widely accepted that prevention of disease is always less expensive than treatment of disease. The health outcomes of withholding coverage for transgender individuals are considered less than the benefit of other kinds of preventive and primary care as transition services are rarely covered and it is unclear to what extent the specifics of transgender health are addressed through standard medical education. This paper seeks to address this specific resource expenditure in an effort to bring attention to the marginalization of transgender health.