Morgan Helps Transgender Patients, Health Care Professionals,
Bridge Understanding Gap
Going to the doctor's office or hospital
is nerve wracking for most people.
 Sarah Morgan (second from right) For transgendered patients, it's often an ordeal they avoid,
sometimes at the expense of their health, says Sarah Morgan, a
clinical assistant professor in UWM's College of Nursing
who has researched and taught about the issues transgendered
people face in dealing with the healthcare system. Patients who
have the physical characteristics of one sex while preferring to
live as the opposite sex often face awkwardness and discomfort
when they meet with health professionals, says Morgan.
Transgender is a broad term used to cover
a wide variety of people who don't clearly fit into male or female categories, according
to Morgan. These patients may include men and women who've
had surgery and hormone treatments to change their sex, cross-dressers,
drag "queens” and "kings,” masculine women
and feminine men.
There isn't much literature on healthcare issues facing
transgender patients, says Morgan, and "there's a real
lack of information” for medical professionals about gender
identity issues, she adds. Patients may fear, often rightly, that
a first-time visit to a doctor's office or hospital turn
into a discussion or debate about sex change treatment, even
if they come in for a totally unrelated medical problem, she adds.
Researchers have just begun to explore the
scientific and environmental factors that cause people who are
born one gender to feel strongly that their gender identity is
the opposite sex. In Morgan's
own doctoral research, she found a sense of gender difference
was experienced at an early age, and the transgender adults she
interviewed often went to extraordinary effort to transition
into what they felt was their true gender.
Her dissertation on transgender life looked
at 11 adults and their experiences with the healthcare system,
their recognition and management of their transgender identities
and their relationships with friends, families and partners.
Morgan's initial research
focused on people who were Caucasian; she would like to continue
the research to look at issues facing transgender adults of other
cultural and racial backgrounds, she says.
"People don't always fit within our artificial ideas
of two distinct genders,” says Morgan. "Some patients
nurses will work with don't fit neatly in those (male or
female) boxes.”
As part of her teaching, Morgan is educating
nurses and other health professionals about this aspect of diversity. "Nurses
(and other health professionals) need to be better prepared,” says
Morgan so they can treat transgender patients with the respect
and care they would give any other patient.
"Some people are overwhelmed or react negatively” the
first time they meet such a patient, says Morgan.
When she presents lectures on the issues to
nursing classes and professional groups, the nursing students
and healthcare professionals have been "pretty receptive,” she says. Most are interested
in learning more about transgender and sexual identity issues so
they can listen to what the patient is saying about their healthcare
problem rather than reacting to the person's sexual identity,
says Morgan.
One of the issues Morgan has become involved in,
along with others on campus, is
making some gender neutral bathrooms available on campus. Such
a facility
would serve those who are not comfortable in the traditional
men's or women's
room, but also parents who might have to accompnany very young
children of the
opposite sex to the bathroom. A forum on the topic, "Everything
You Ever Wanted
to Know About Gender Neutral bathrooms," will be help March 29
at the UWM Union
Theatre from 1-3 p.m. It is sponsored by LGBT Resource Center,
Women's Resource
Center, Dean of Students, the Rainbow Alliance, TRANS, and the
Student
Accessibility Center
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