Uncovering Medical and Mental Health Professionals' Decision-Making in the Treatment of Trans-Variant Patients
This project is a study of medical and mental health professionals who treat trans-variant patients. Using in-depth interviews, I show how providers describe the process by which they make decisions with patients who desire, through formal means, to hormonally and/or surgically transition from one gender to the other. This work uncovers the ways professionals make decisions in the absence or limitation of formal knowledge while simulaneously attemping to ground their work in this same knoweldge to obtain respect and legitimacy. Professionals must also acknowledge that they relinquesh some power to patients to make decisions which involve high risk for them. Providers attempt to balance these demands all while attempting to be viewed by their trans-patients as `good' doctors and therapists and not gatekeepers.
knowledge legitimacy, qualitative health research, transgender, Gender and Sexuality
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