Major Health Concerns Among Transgender Population: Solutions - Essay Sample

Research question: What are the major health concerns among the transgender population, and what are their solutions?

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The transgender population consists of people with diversified gender identities and expression that differs from their naturally assigned sex. For instance, lesbians, gays, and bisexual individuals may differ from the rest of the population in social roles, physical appearance, and behavior. This particular group of people faces several health concerns that authorities need to look into because every individual has a right to life and good health. Many times, they find themselves discriminated from the social circle, and they suffer a lot from social stigma, which is why I consider them a particular class of people. Therefore, I will focus my discussion on major health concerns among this specific population in our societies and recommendations on possible solutions to these concerns.

Many health concerns that the transgender population faces mostly are due to minority stress brought about by their choice to be transgender and societal treatment. The interests have characteristics such as social stigma, harassment, abuse, neglect, rejection, and discrimination. Furthermore, social stigma is the major characteristics of these health concerns because it expresses itself in two ways. There is a stigma that comes directly from societal discrimination while there is one that internalizes itself within the people turning it into a negative attitude towards them. We refer to it as internalized stigma as it originates within the affected person and ends up affecting only them.

Psychological Abuse

Psychological abuse involves exposing a victim to an act that will result in emotional trauma, for example, anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress (Gong, Tong, Sunjeev, and Helen 92). This kind of abuse is generally because of power or authority imbalance in abusive relationships where the more powerful person ill-treats their partners. In this case, transgender people find themselves emotionally abused when society sees them as lesser human beings with no moral rights to be part of the community. People talk ill about them, their relationships meet strong rejection from the city, and for this reason, some of them are not proud of their unions.

Solution

The psychological torture resulting from discrimination and other forms of ill-treatment by society to these transgender families is manageable. The community should accept that these people are just normal humans with the right to life, freedom, and better treatment. Equally, the legal redress is necessary to tame human behavior, like in most governments, the law recognizes gay and transgender rights to life. The public should have adequate sensitization against fighting transgender individuals, as it is a personal sexual preference. As long as it does not injure the morals of another person who feels they are acceptable in society, transgender individuals should enjoy their rights to equality.

Mental Health Problems

Most mental health problems that transgender individuals face are either mood disorders or trauma-related disorders. Due to character traits that define these health concerns, i.e., negative social disapproval and harassment from the standard gender group, transgender individuals suffer many mental illnesses. Society treats these people with different regards, notwithstanding their elevated positions in the community. They receive abusive notices and discrimination of high levels when they associate with people. The negativity from the people causes stress and a sense of belittlement in their personalities, which in turn makes them developmental disorders by being over-moody or traumatized.

Solutions

Mental health problems affect everyone's life today, however, amongst the transgender population, it is a common challenge that will still live within societies. In this regard, both International Health regulation bodies and State governments are working to find solutions to this challenge. The medical treatment does not outrightly cure mental disorders, but it helps in managing symptoms (Reid, William, et al. 101). Therefore, effective psychotherapies need emphasis amongst these people and a bit of medical treatment to manage mental issues. However, it is always cheaper to avoid or prevent such situations, which is why public education about how to live with the transgender population is necessary. When society accepts to live with these people, usually by treating them as equals in life, discrimination and harassment will be no more, thereby ending mental health issues.

Physical and Sexual Abuse

Mental health problems make transgender individuals weak and defenseless, exposing them to any form of sexual and physical threats. Physical abuse means that an individual has no physical defense and is prone to any torture, including manual labor and physical beating. Sexual violence means that an individual is not able to take care in cases where there is forceful sexual intercourse or any form of sexual assault. These types of attacks expose the victims to infectious conditions like HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (Sachs, Carolyn, and Brooke 2). Once more, the transgender population is prone to this form of health concern because they may lack protection against such types of immoralities.

Solution

The transgender population consists of mentally upright people with rights to life and freedom from any form of exploitation. Governments should first recognize that they also have rights to decent living and protection against any abuse. This step is one control measure to the spread of sexual abuse incidences and the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections. Therefore, legal redress on violation of the rights of every individual and protections against any form of abuse is necessary. The legal remedy will help tame cases of sexual abuse and in turn, regulate the spread of STIs (Walker 201). Further, public awareness is also necessary to educate the public on the rights of these special populations. The transgender community also deserves regards like any other person and should be protected against any form of violations.

Conclusion

The issues mentioned above are the most common health concerns that health practitioners deal with when handling affected individuals from the transgender population. They all are effects of societal judgments and ill-treatment, which are against humanity. It is important to note that being transgender is a personal choice and does not affect any third party directly. Additionally, people who are among the transgender population are fellow right-minded human beings with equal rights to life as their counterparts. Therefore, the international bodies, governments, and all concerned stakeholders should step up the fight against discrimination on transgender individuals. Enforcement of legal redress in the governing laws and public awareness creation on how to accept and live with the transgender people will help manage these health concerns.

Works Cited

Gong, An Tong, Sunjeev K. Kamboj, and Helen Valerie Curran. "Post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of sexual assault with pre-assault substance consumption: a systematic review." Frontiers in psychiatry 10 (2019): 92.

Reid, William H., et al. The treatment of psychiatric disorders. Routledge, 2018.

Sachs, Carolyn J., and Brooke Thomas. "Sexual Assault Infectious Disease Prophylaxis." StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing, 2019.

Walker, Alexandra. "Case Study Part Three: Raising Consciousness-Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Armed Conflict." Collective Consciousness and Gender. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2018. 199-250.