"Because it’s not like I have a choice": The Price of Accountability in Transgender Healthcare

• In Event: 4361 - Inequalities, the Life Course, and Problematizing the Ways ‘the System’ Works for Trans People

Abstract

Researchers have increasingly devoted attention to the health and healthcare experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) populations. However, studies focused on the relationship between gender and accountability in transgender healthcare experience are limited and often erase those who do not conform to a binary gender system or the medical model for transgender identity. We draw on West and Zimmerman’s “doing gender” theory and literature on social accountability to study cisnormative accountability structures in healthcare settings. Utilizing thematic analysis and feminist fieldwork analysis (Kleinman 2007), we examine the gendered nuances of accountability in transgender healthcare experience through 20 in-depth interviews with TGNC young adults (aged 18-24) in Florida. We found that participants often experience cisnormative accountability in healthcare settings. Specifically, there was variation in how participants were held accountable by healthcare providers and environments because of their TGNC status or assigned sex at birth. We found themes concerning accountability structures in participants’ healthcare through the social processes of cisnormativity, reproduction, and community. In conclusion, we draw out implications of these findings and how gender-affirming healthcare may assist in alleviating possible consequences of accountability structures.

Authors

• Nik Lampe, University of South Carolina

• Shannon K. Carter, University of Central Florida

• Lindsay Taliaferro, University of Central Florida