Transgender Patients: A Comparative Analysis

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One way to resolve the uncertainty of doing or saying something wrong is for a nurse to focus on each patient as an individual. Many healthcare providers argue that marital status and sexual orientation are irreverent and prefer to be “blind to difference” (Beagan, 2011). However, this silence has done harm. Individuals want to feel comfortable confiding in their health care provider about all aspects of their lives. In order to build trust with a transgender patient and their spouse, health care providers should take open, non-judgmental sexual and social history rather than making assumptions based on their appearance or sexual behaviour (Ard and Harvey, n.d.). By nurses taking the approach of asking open-ended questions, mirroring the pronouns