Sarah Boslaugh - Transgender Health Issues

TRANSGENDER HEALTH ISSUES

Plastic Surgery
Lana Thompson

Birth Control
Aharon W. Zorea

Bullying
Sally Kuykendall, PhD

Steroids
Aharon W. Zorea

Suicide and Mental Health
Rudy Nydegger

Cutting and Self-Harm
Chris Simpson

Discrimination against the Mentally Ill
Monica A. Joseph

Concussions
William Paul Meehan III

Drug Resistance
Sarah E. Boslaugh

Work-Life Balance
Janice Arenofsky

The Body Size and Health Debate
Christine L. B. Selby

Obesity: Second Edition
Evelyn B. Kelly

Infertility Treatments
Janice Arenofsky

Assistive Technology for People with Disabilities
Denis K. Anson

Sarah Boslaugh

Health and Medical Issues Today

Copyright 2018 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Boslaugh, Sarah, author.
Title: Transgender health issues / Sarah Boslaugh.
Description: Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood/ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2018] | Series: Health and medical issues today | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018014992 (print) | LCCN 2018017746 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440858888 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440858871 (print: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Transgender peopleHealth and hygiene. | Transgender peopleSocial aspects.
Classification: LCC RA564.87 (ebook) | LCC RA564.87 .B67 2018 (print) | DDC 362.1086/7dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014992

ISBN: 978-1-4408-5887-1 (print)
978-1-4408-5888-8 (ebook)

22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Greenwood
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

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This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Every day, the public is bombarded with information on developments in medicine and health care. Whether it is on the latest techniques in treatment or research, or on concerns over public health threats, this information directly affects the lives of people more than almost any other issue. Although there are many sources for understanding these topicsfrom websites and blogs to newspapers and magazinesstudents and ordinary citizens often need one resource that makes sense of the complex health and medical issues affecting their daily lives.

The Health and Medical Issues Today series provides just such a one-stop resource for obtaining a solid overview of the most controversial areas of health care in the 21st century. Each volume addresses one topic and provides a balanced summary of what is known. These volumes provide an excellent first step for students and lay people interested in understanding how health care works in our society today.

Each volume is broken into several parts to provide readers and researchers with easy access to the information they need:

• provides overview chapters on background information including chapters on such areas as the historical, scientific, medical, social, and legal issues involvedthat a citizen needs to intelligently understand the topic.
• provides capsule examinations of the most heated contemporary issues and debates and analyzes in a balanced manner the viewpoints held by various advocates in the debates.
• provides case studies that show examples of the concepts discussed in the previous sections.

A selection of reference material, such as a timeline of important events and a directory of organizations, serves as the best next step in learning about the topic at hand.

The Health and Medical Issues Today series strives to provide readers with all the information needed to begin making sense of some of the most important debates going on in the world today. The series includes volumes on such topics as stem-cell research, obesity, gene therapy, alternative medicine, organ transplantation, mental health, and more.

To be transgender is to have a gender identity that does not correspond to the identity assigned you at birth. This is an unusual state of being in a world in which the vast majority of people never give gender identity a second thoughtthey are identified at birth as male or female, grow up to be boys or girls, then become men or women, all in concordance with their original gender identification. When you've always taken something as basic as gender identity for granted, it can come as a shock to learn that it's not that simple for everyone.

People generally resist having their basic assumptions about the world challenged, and the very existence of transgender people constitutes a challenge to a whole host of often unstated assumptions about gender, beginning with the belief that there are exactly two genders and everyone fitting neatly into one or the other. Not everyone appreciates having so simple and tidy a worldview overturned, and while some respond with curiosity and a desire for more knowledge, others react with defensiveness, fear, and hatred. One goal of this book is to provide everyone, no matter their current understanding of transgender issues, with information that will help them move toward a better understanding and acceptance of transgender people, as well as an appreciation of how complex issues of gender identity can be. Another goal is to provide information and resources to people of all ages who are actively seeking information about transgender issues, whether to help clarify their own situation, to help a friend, or simply to become a better informed citizen of the world.

This is a book about transgender health issues, so it includes information about specific health concerns of transgender people, such as the many options for the gender transition (gender affirmation) process and the health risks associated with certain procedures. However, health is not simply about what happens in the doctor's office, the medical clinic, or the hospital. In this volume, health is broadly defined by drawing on the famous formulation from the preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Transgender people are a small minority of the world's population and are often victims of discrimination and persecution. Any consideration of transgender health must therefore take into account the stress and strain that comes from living in the world of as part of a misunderstood and sometimes despised minority group. It must also consider the impact of widespread discrimination against transgender people, and the very real risk of being assaulted or even killed due to one's transgender status.

It would be a mistake to dwell only on the negative, however. In recent years we've seen a host of transgender people, both celebrities and private citizens, come forward to identify themselves and tell their stories to the public. Young people today seem more willing to accept gender identity as a continuum rather than a simple binary, are less concerned with policing other people's choices regarding gender expression, and are simply more willing to embrace the variety of human existence rather than forcing people into a preexisting schema. Many governments and private entities are also beginning to acknowledge the diversity of gender identities that exist in the world, and enacting laws and policies to protect the rights of those who may not fit the gender binary model. Education is a key factor in overcoming prejudice, and Transgender Health Issues hopes to make a contribution to that effort while at the same time empowering transgender people and their allies with knowledge that will help them live their best lives.