Md. Taqi Yasir
There are doctors who are failing their transgender patients. In the UK, an estimation of 1 in 5 general practitioners is declining transgender people treatments such as hormone therapy, said James Barrett of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists last week. Some are remarkably frank, and said that he was not doing this as it is against my deeply held religious principles. The problem is not confined to the UK. Surveys carried out in the US describe aggravation, physical assault and denial of equal treatment in doctor’s offices or hospitals. What’s more, we know that transgender people have a far higher rate of suicide which had been a 2010 study in the US found that 41 per cent had attempted it; the national average is 1.6%. Nonetheless, we also know that social support, access to gender-reassignment with hormones or surgery, and plummeting terrors upon transgender and subordinate the likelihood of a suicide attempt. Doctors are bound to have the same range of prejudices, personal beliefs and religious views as the rest of us, but they have chosen a profession that requires them to put their patients’ health first. Transgender people often say that they have to teach doctors about transgender care.