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Managing Hopelessness: The Health-seeking Processes and Negotiations for Queer and/or Trans People

Advances in Trans Studies: Moving Toward Gender Expansion and Trans Hope

ISBN: 978-1-80262-030-6, eISBN: 978-1-80262-029-0

Publication date: 19 November 2021

Abstract

This study explores the health-seeking process for queer and/or trans people, and factors involved in their healthcare negotiations and decisions to seek care. The data included 20 semi-structured interviews of people who identify as queer and/or trans in the southeastern United States. Qualitative analysis was conducted using constructivist grounded theory to inductively analyze accounts of healthcare events, behaviors, and experiences of queer and/or trans people. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 57, with a majority identifying as trans/gender nonconforming (65%) and those remaining identifying as queer, cisgender individuals (35%). Both queer and trans identities can overlap, therefore, I use the term “queer and/or trans.” Categories generated through the coding process were as follows: (1) mental health concerns, (2) negotiating gendered and heteronormative assumptions, and (3) significance of participants creating a bed of knowledge. My analysis asserts that these data indicate that queer and/or trans participants manage not just healthcare decisions, but the hopelessness attached to seeking this type of help.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my participants, and their willingness to share their deep and personal lived experiences with me. Additionally, this work would not be possible without the vital and critical comments by my mentor, Dr Kendal Broad-Wright, my masters’ committee member Dr Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, and all of the reviewers of Advances of Gender Research.

Citation

Akella, S.V. (2021), "Managing Hopelessness: The Health-seeking Processes and Negotiations for Queer and/or Trans People", Johnson, A.H., Rogers, B.A. and Taylor, T. (Ed.) Advances in Trans Studies: Moving Toward Gender Expansion and Trans Hope (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 32), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 193-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620210000032013

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited