对于LGBTQ人群来说，友好的医疗保健很重要，但很难找到

When Lindsey Huie arrived at the hospital that day in 2019, she had already hit peak stress.

她的胸腔被撕得粉碎. She was thinking about her four kids and who would care for them if her wife had to come help her.

但后来, 休伊在急诊室被问到的第一个问题是, “我们能联系你丈夫吗??她说，这甚至算不上是一个问题，而是一种期待.

这意味着, 而不是集中精力治疗她心脏的动脉破裂, 她发现自己不得不解释, “嗯, 我们这里的生活完全不同, 朋友。."

她活了下来. 但Huie, a former professional soccer player who now works as a coach and consultant in Yorba Linda, 加州, 她说，在她需要照顾的时候，这种侮辱经常发生.

Experts in LGBTQ health say that's a too-common experience that has serious consequences. But they also say that health care professionals can find easy ways to be welcoming to LGBTQ patients – and that patients have resources to lead them to welcoming professionals.

LGBTQ人群面临着和其他人一样的问题, 包括获得医疗保险和初级保健医生短缺, 博士说. 小卡尔·斯特里德.波士顿大学医学助理教授乔巴尼亚说 & 阿维迪安医学院的学生，但还要承受额外的歧视负担.

A 2020年美国心脏协会科学声明, 是史崔德帮忙写的吗, said that more than half of sexual minority (a broad term for people who are not heterosexual) adults and 70% of gender minority (such as transgender) adults reported some form of discrimination from health care professionals.

与此同时, roughly 1 in 6 LGBTQ people say they have avoided medical care because they feared being discriminated against, 根据… 2017年的调查 由美国国家公共电台，罗伯特·伍德·约翰逊基金会和哈佛大学T.H. 陈公共卫生学院.

A 2020年的报告 by the National Academies of Science and Engineering said that anti-LGBTQ discrimination has "direct negative consequences for health and well-being" and exacerbates disparities. 这些差异, 根据美国心脏协会的声明, include growing evidence that LGBTQ adults experience worse cardiovascular health than their heterosexual peers.

这种歧视的影响从贬低到危及生命. 斯特里德说，他曾遇到过一些病人, 出柜之后, 被医生拒之门外，无法获得重要的药物治疗. 更常见的问题, 他说, might involve a medical office worker who refuses to use a person's chosen name or asks questions that are irrelevant to medical care.

40岁的休伊在35岁左右公开出柜.

Non-LGBTQ people may think that the stress of coming out happens one time, s他说. "But the reality is that you're coming out over and over and over and over and over again." For example, she's had to explain to many doctors why birth control is not a concern for her.

Dr. 塞萨尔冈萨雷斯, clinical director of the Transgender and Intersex Specialty Care Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, 明尼苏达州, said health care professionals can take many steps to be welcoming to LGBTQ patients.

它可以从小线索开始, 冈萨雷斯说, such as having statements on the office's website or in the lobby that say all individuals are welcome. 同样，入学表格应该询问性别认同和首选代词.

Gonzalez, a clinical health psychologist who uses both he and they pronouns, co-wrote a 2021篇文章 in the journal Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice that spelled out additional ways for health care teams to signal that they take LGBTQ patients seriously.

冈萨雷斯说:“在很多方面，这与信任有关.

简单的措施可以带来巨大的好处, 冈萨雷斯说, 谁教住院医生和其他人文化能力. 学生们会收到别针，说明他们了解LGBTQ的健康需求.

佩戴胸针的与会者反馈说:“天哪，这太不可思议了. 人们很自然地告诉我他们是变性人, 或者他们告诉我他们的变性孩子,’”冈萨雷斯说。.

斯特里德强调，在这些问题上的培训不应该止步于医生. “前台员工需要接受培训，让他们有能力胜任工作, 恰当地提问，并牢记保密原则,他说.

The benefits of being conscientious that not everybody's families or bodies are the same can help a wide variety of people go beyond LGBTQ patients themselves, 冈萨雷斯说. The family member of a transgender child might need a safe space to discuss fatigue and depression from dealing with harassment. An adoptee might appreciate not having to explain that their family history is not the same as their genetic background. A woman who has been treated for ovarian cancer might not want to be subjected to questions about parts of her anatomy that she no longer has.

一个意识到这一切的医疗团队, 冈萨雷斯说, tells a patient that "someone really has an understanding of what's going on with their health."

为了找到这样的治疗方法，冈萨雷斯和斯特里德都建议从 LGBTQ+医疗保健目录. The free, searchable database lists LGBTQ-朋友。ly doctors across the United States and Canada.

斯特里德说，人权运动也提供 欢迎卫生系统的清单 由国家. 他说，许多城市都有专门针对lgbtq的医疗中心. 疾病控制和预防中心提供 一个列表 这样的中心.

在农村地区，选择可能有限, 强调承认, 但是一些诊所提供远程医疗服务, which could be important in states that have passed laws targeting gender-affirming care.

Huie说她现在的医生“非常包容LGBTQ”.为了找到这样的照顾，她有几种策略.

她浏览给医生打分的网站, 在社交媒体群中提问，并与LGBTQ盟友核实. “那, 在我看来, is a little bit better than just trying to do it on your own or showing up and then hoping for the best."

Huie, 谁不再结婚了, thinks "we still have a pretty long ways to go" before LGBTQ people and their families are not consistently isolated and, 无意或无意, 让他们感到不受医护人员和整个社会的欢迎.

她说，问题往往不是恶意，而是无知. People in general "are just so uneducated that there are things outside of our norm. 这就是我觉得我们需要做得更好的地方."