The School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin – Madison hosted the inaugural Wisconsin LGBTQ+ Health Summit on Thursday.
“We know that there’s education that needs to be done for LGBTQ populations at large but there’s something within healthcare that is specific that they’re having within clinical studying and patient populations where current providers do not have the language, terminology, lexicon, whatever you want to call it for addressing LGBTQ health,” School of Nursing Diversity Officer Mel Freitag said.
More than 300 students, healthcare providers, mental health practitioners and the greater LGBTQ+ community arrived on campus for an evening filled with workshops focused on improving healthcare experiences for queer/ trans patients. The evening kicked off with a variety of breakout sessions for providers and continued with a keynote delivered by Rhode Island based physiotherapist Dr. Jayden Thai. In addition to Thai’s keynote, local poet and community organizer T. Banks gave the closing remarks creating space for Queer and Trans People of Color (Q/TPOC) throughout the summit.
“We’ve been intentional about bringing in queer people of color and centering their voices,” Student Member of the Planning Committee Alex Dudek said.
Thai addressed the issue of erasure of the experiences of trans people of color within the context of the larger LGBTQ community in his keynote. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2015, while 33 percent of trans patients report having negative experiences with healthcare providers, trans people of color often report negative experience at a higher rate.
“We have been misgendered, misidentified and mocked by our own providers,” Thai said during his keynote.
LGBTQ+ patients will sometimes avoid seeking healthcare out of fear of experiencing macroaggressions, microaggressions or being denied services. Thai said healthcare providers should begin to reflect on how patients receive care using intersectional identity as a framework. For example, Black patients often have negative associations with the healthcare field due to historical trials like the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in Black Men, and Black women having higher birth mortality rates than white women. As a result, Black trans women often struggle finding both culturally competent and trans-affirming care.
“Last year, we had a LGBTQ health course that was run out of pharmacy and nursing, and it filled at capacity right away, within like a day, so we really saw the need for it directly from the students. We also discuss with them the different terminology and the difference between Stud vs Dyke meanings.” Freitag said.
She said most people often think of LGBTQ health care only in regards to sexual health and STI education, but health care but includes things such as catheter insertion and reproductive health..
Dudek said many LGBTQ+ people struggle to find competent primary care physicians. In the summit, presenters emphasized the importance of having healthcare providers who do not rely on their patients to educate them or pretend to know everything but acknowledge the gaps in their knowledge while educating themselves on their own time.
“We could be good medical providers and good mental healthcare professionals and still cause harm to people we claim to serve,” Thai said.
The summit emphasized the importance of starting the conversation surrounding inclusive care. Of course providers will not learn everything they need to know about serving Queer/ Trans populations at the summit but it’s a start, Freitag said. She said she hopes this summit will encourage providers to take what they have learned back to the workplace.
Freitag said this conference focuses on building a sustainable way for people to address the issues within the healthcare system. She also stated providers need to be involved in ongoing conversations about inclusive healthcare.
“Rely on other experts. Don’t feel like you have to be an expert on everything. A lot of providers feel like they have to be an expert on everything,” she said.
Dudek said inclusive providers tend to be specialists, so it is important primary care physicians have access to resources to improve the care they provide of LGBTQ+ patients. This includes using correct pronouns and preferred names. They are hopeful summit attendees will walk away with concrete tools whether in their personal or professional lives to navigate the system.
“As Queer students, we have a lot of concerns about the way we are talked about in the context of health and healthcare. Sometimes when we’re battling against that it feels like we’re shouting into the void and sometimes it feels like nobody is listening or they’re listening and they don’t want to do anything about it because it’s too hard,” Dudek said.
They said they are looking forward to the summit next year and that this is the most “queer energy” they have felt in the School of Nursing. Public Health Madison & Dane County and Transgender Health Coalition also co-sponsored the summit. Dudek said the conference means a lot because it means people are listening.
“I think as nurses we especially have a role to play in pushing this forward,” Dudek said.
