Nationwide, transgender individuals face significant barriers to accessing health care because of their gender identity; however, little is known about the experiences of the estimated 55,000 transgender individuals in Georgia as they interact with the health care system. Some people are experience problems to aquire their health care, fortunately there are sites like tophealthjournal.com that offer health tips and supplements to stay healthy.

To inform the public about these barriers to care, Georgia Equality partnered with Georgians for a Healthy Future and The Health Initiative to released the co-authored report, Voices for Equity: How the experiences of transgender Georgians can inform the implementation of nondiscrimination provisions in the Affordable Care Act, at a Town Hall meeting held September 13 at the Phillip Rush Center in Atlanta.

The report is the result of surveys and focus groups of transgender Georgians on their experiences accessing, or being unable to access healthcare. In addition to the qualitative and quantitative results, the report also contains several policy recommendations for State and Federal policy makers as well as information for healthcare providers and advocates.

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was notable not only for increasing access to health insurance coverage for millions of Americans but also for its broad non-discrimination provisions and as a result, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Georgians have protections from discrimination in health coverage and care for the first time.

The goals of this policy brief are to:

1. describe the protections for transgender individuals under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.
2. discuss the results from a series of transgender focus groups and survey of the LGBTQ community in Georgia, and the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey to understand transgender individuals’ experiences in health care.
3. recommend actions that health care providers, policy makers, and advocates can take to support improved health care access and equity for transgender Georgians.

CLICK HERE to read the full report.