The Asexual Healthcare Experience

• In Event: 1451 - Open Refereed Paper Roundtable
  In Refereed Roundtable (100 min): Table 14: Sexuality, Gender, and Health

Abstract

Health care is important in our society, and it has become a very hotly-contested point of many political debates. What is lost in these debates is the differing experiences of individuals who do not conform to the white cisgender, heterosexual norms that have been prescribed as being normative in our society. Different people have a wide array of different experiences with health care. Even within the LGBT+ community, individuals have very unique experiences depending on their various identities. Those who are asexual, in particular, face very particular obstacles that they must overcome when trying to receive medical treatment. The primary objective of this paper is to analyze the varying experiences that those who identify as any form of asexual (demisexual, gray-asexual, etc) have had with health care providers in the past. As a sexuality, asexuality is underrepresented in research, and this paper serves as an attempt to analyze some of the unique obstacles that those who are asexual face in their daily lives.

Participants were gathered through social media/networking sites that offer various types of interactable forums, allowing a wide array of participants to be contacted. Data was gathered through guided interviews, lasting approximately one hour, and were conducted either through in-person interviews, phone interviews, or video interviews. Interviews focused on respondents’ experiences with healthcare professionals and how their sexuality has played a role in the care that they have received from providers in the past. The sample includes 20 self-identifying asexual people of varying ages, races, and gender identities, from varied parts of the country.

Consistent with work that has been done in the past on sexuality and healthcare, results here suggest that those who are asexual experience unique forms of discrimination in the healthcare field that differ from those of other sexual orientations.

Author

• Katherine Lorena Linder