Health(care) matters: where do the transgender individuals of Kashmir situate themselves?

SummaryWhile employing a phenomenological perspective, the present study aimed to explore the varied experiences of transgender individuals in Kashmir, concerning their health-seeking behavior, and the constraints they face while accessing healthcare resources on a day-to-day basis in their life world. Participants were recruited through the purposive and snowball sampling strategies and the sufficiency of sample size was determined by data saturation. Data were collected using face-to-face in-depth interviews and analyzed through Colaizzi ’s procedure of extracting recurrent themes and their interwoven relationships in qualitative research. Three main themes of awareness and the preferences for healthcare, gender identity and persistent stigmatization in care settings, and intra-community support and the resultant caregiving were p rominent. Results of the study revealed that the transgender individuals in Kashmir experience inappropriate health-seeking behaviour primarily due to their unawareness regarding health, diseases and public healthcare programs/schemes, financial constraints, social exclusion, improper support and so cial stigma. They often prefer treating their health issues, mostly through local pharmacies or patent medicine vendors (PMVs), instead of visiting the medical professionals in the organized sector. Moreover, in many instances, they were also found to delay their decisions to seek care or simply dec ided to remain far from any medical intervention. A...
Source: Health Promotion International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research