Have You Faced This?

I don’t think so, but the key word is “think” because I don’t know for sure but more on this later.

LGBT adults in the US are twice as likely to experience disrespect or unfair treatment at the doctor’s office, survey finds
CNN
By Deidre McPhillips
April 2, 2024

The disproportionate level of discrimination that LGBT adults experience in their daily lives extends to the doctor’s office, and these negative experiences have led many to change their health care and behavior, a new survey from KFF found.

A third of LGBT adults say that a doctor or another health care provider has treated them unfairly or with disrespect, compared with about 15% of adults who don’t identify as LGBT, according to the survey.

LGBT adults were also more than twice as likely to experience other negative interactions during recent health care visits, including providers making assumptions about them (40%), suggesting personal blame for a health problem (32%) and ignoring a request or question (32%).  Less than 20% of adults who do not identify as LGBT say they have experienced any of these same interactions.

Consequences resulting from these negative health care experiences are also more than twice as common among LGBT adults. About a quarter of LGBT adults say they’ve had a recent health care experience that caused their health to get worse, compared with less than 10% of other adults, the survey found. And more than a third of LGBT adults have said they’ve become less likely to seek health care or have switched providers, compared to about 15% of other adults.

LGBT adults are consistently more likely than non-LGBT adults to experience discrimination in their daily lives at least a few times a year across demographics. But among LGBT adults, negative experiences are more likely among those who are younger, women and have lower income.

I say think because nothing was overt, it was body movement, the fact that he never looked at me during the office visits.

Was it bigotry or bad manners, I don’t know but he sat with his back toward me during the office visit and typed on the computer.

“This survey’s findings underscore and enhance our understanding of the ongoing challenges LGBT adults in the U.S. face, including with respect to experiences with stigma and discrimination and poorer mental health outcomes compared to non-LGBT peers,” KFF researchers wrote in the new report. “Indeed, these findings are likely intertwined. That is, experiences of stigma and discrimination can lead to challenges with mental health, particularly at a time when LGBTQ people’s rights and access to social institutions, including health care, have been called into question and politicized.”

I have been on panels to talk to future doctors about being LGBTQ+ patients and it made me more aware of bias in the questions we ask,

• Asking a girl if she has a boyfriend.
• Asking about reproductive heath with a question that are biased for heterosexual relationships.

Then when they find out you are LGBTQ they go into their spiel on “Safe Sex” as one of the panelist said, “Doctor we have been together for over 30 years and married ten years ago!” Many of the healthcare providers have the biased view that LGBTQ+ people hop around from one bed to another.

So that leaves me to ask…

 

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