An Older Transgender Woman's Quest for Identity

Abstract

Despite sensationalized media attention, transgender individuals are the most marginalized and misunderstood group in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. The current article presents a case study of one woman's quest for identity. Narrative inquiry was used to analyze data from interview transcripts and four themes emerged during analysis: (a) naming the ambiguity, (b) revealingconcealing the authentic self, (c) discovering the transgender community, and (d) embracing the "T" identity. Lifespan and empowerment theories were used to harvest meanings from these themes. Implications for nursing practice and research were examined based on study findings. Participatory action research offers an approach for future studies in which researchers advocate for transgender individuals and remove obstacles to their health care access. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 54(2)

Supporting Aged Care Workers to Understand and Respond to the Needs of Trans and Gender Diverse People: An Australian Co-designed Quality Improvement Initiative

“…Most importantly, using a co-design approach ensured that the resources were developed and informed by the wisdom and experiences of TGD people themselves, and at the same time advocated for transgender individuals and assisted to remove barriers to healthcare [19,20]. Engaging older TGD people in this planning and review process not only assisted in empowering older TGD consumers but maximized the likelihood that cultural safety was achieved [2].…”

Transgenders in the Mainstream: Welfare Schemes in Kerala—Kochi Metro Rail Project, Education Programme, Health Clinics, and Old-Age Pension

“…Briones, on the other hand, considers that exclusion from the family results in transgender individuals wanting to be with anyone who gives them importance. Walker et al (2016) believes that society's insistence to gender binary is the chief obstacle of transgender individuals. Joseph (2013), Miller andGrollman (2015) and Agrawal (2016) detail various aspects of transgender exclusion.…”

A narrative review of literature on the use of health and social care by older trans adults: what can United Kingdom services learn?

“…Internalised stigma (Siverskog, 2014;Porter et al, 2016;Johnson et al, 2018) is also relevant (for more on this issue, see Puckett and Levitt, 2015). Invisibility is a word sometimes applied to trans people within health and social care (and more widely) (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al, 2014;Siverskog, 2014;Witten, 2014Witten, , 2017Page et al, 2016;Porter et al, 2016;Walker et al, 2016;Michael et al, 2018;Pang et al, 2019;Waling et al, 2020). Bouman et al (2016) use the term double discrimination, referring to the discrimination attached to being trans plus the discrimination linked with being older, although Warren and Steffen (2020) suggest that older trans adults may be more likely to attribute discrimination to gender identity than to age.…”

“…Privacy is a concern in health and social care settings (Redman, 2011;Finkenauer et al, 2012;Ansara, 2015;Walker et al, 2016;Witten, 2017;Michael et al, 2018;Pang et al, 2019) and encompasses privacy of information, space and direct aspects of care. It links to discrimination and disrespect, and also to the challenges (or anticipated challenges) of growing older, possibly becoming physically more dependent on others and being less able to maintain one's own privacy without support.…”

“…Positive practice in health and social care Taking a lifecourse perspective involves aiming to understand individuals in terms of their family and personal history, prior life experiences, psycho-social context, broad socio-historical context and relational context, all of which affect physical and mental health, and wellbeing in later life (Siverskog, 2014;Witten, 2014;Latham and Barrett, 2015b;Porter et al, 2016;Walker et al, 2016Walker et al, , 2017. Health and social care systems are often perceived as inflexible by those who use them, and a lifecourse perspective to some extent mitigates inflexibility.…”