Empowering healthcare professionals with health promotion information for transgender adolescents

Abstract

While the majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) adolescents, much like their cis-gendered heterosexual peers, will be confident and healthy young individuals, there are well-known health disparities, particularly within the transgendered community, which may lead to inferior health outcomes. To improve these outcomes, we must empower professionals to feel confident in their interactions with transgender adolescents so they can recognise, discuss and address these disparities. For many healthcare professionals, this may be a novel experience, but following the announcement in 2022 that the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) will move towards a regional model, these discussions increasingly frequently be encountered in a general paediatric setting. In this article, we discuss some of the topics which may be relevant to transgender young people during a general paediatric consultation.