The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Obama in 2010; it undertook to address the many faults in the current healthcare system, particularly focusing on historically marginalized and underserved communities. Although the bill prohibited healthcare providers from discriminating against certain patients, the trans* community continues to face health disparities, particularly a lack of access to knowledgeable doctors and adequate health care services that address their specific needs, in addition to obtaining insurance enrollment and coverage. Although there are undeniably certain loopholes and inconsistencies that detract from the bills purpose, the main culprit behind the continued discrimination is not insurance policy but rather the conceptualization of gender in Western society. By adhering to a strict binary gender system, social institutions and mainstream society codify discrimination again people that identify outside of this dichotomous labelling classification. In the last few decades, there has been a promising trend toward tolerance of the LGBT community and particularly a movement toward sharing the non-standard narratives. This thesis took advantage of that opportunity to speak to trans* individuals about their health care experiences with doctors, medical treatments, insurance companies, and a more general description of their transitional process, in whichever point they were currently experiencing. In addition to providing an analysis of the current situation, this work hopes to inspire the reader to question their fundamental conceptions of gender to help create a more open-minded society for all people.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11242014-093014 |
| Date | 03 December 2014 |
| Creators | Nektalova, Elina |
| Contributors | Juleigh Petty, Jonathan Metzl |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11242014-093014/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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