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A study published in the journal Heliyon has revealed that healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, exhibit higher levels of bias against transgender individuals compared to those who are not in the healthcare field. The research, conducted by Daniel W. Derbyshire of the University of Exeter and Tamsin Keay of Coventry University, found that nursing healthcare professionals were more inclined to agree with statements such as “I believe a person can never change their gender” or “I think there is something wrong with a person who says they are neither a man nor a woman” when compared to other healthcare professionals and non-healthcare individuals.
The study, which surveyed 11,996 nursing healthcare professionals and 22,443 non-nursing healthcare professionals from 2020 to 2022, compared their responses to 177,810 responses from non-healthcare professionals. The results indicated that healthcare professionals were less likely to personally know transgender individuals, and nurses were more prone to conflating sex and gender identity.
Participants were asked to categorize groups of people using “good” words like “nice” or “laughter” and “bad” words like “nasty” or “rotten.” The questionnaire also inquired about the participants’ interactions with transgender individuals in their daily lives. While healthcare professionals, both nurses and non-nurses, were more likely to have encountered a transgender person compared to non-healthcare professionals, they reported being less likely to have a transgender friend or family member.
These findings suggest that healthcare professionals, including both nurses and non-nurses, may primarily interact with transgender individuals in a professional context.
