Medical schools as cisgendered organizations

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) 2024-06, Vol.350, p.116913-116913, Article 116913
• Main Author: Kelley, Andrea D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Curriculum - trends; Female; Focus Groups; Humans; Male; Schools, Medical - organization & administration; Sexual and Gender Minorities - psychology; Students, Medical - psychology; Transgender Persons - psychology; United States
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116913

Organizations and their practices contribute to the marginalization of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) populations by rewarding gender normativity and punishing gender transgression. The present study draws on data gleaned from four focus groups completed in 2023 with a total of 19 participants to explore TGD U.S. medical students’ perceptions of TGD content inclusion in their medical school curricula. Using abductive analysis, I argue that curricular oversights which omit socio-political contexts regarding TGD health and healthcare, as well as continued pathologization of TGD communities and people, contribute to a hostile learning environment for TGD medical students and residents. I conceptualize medical schools as cisgendered organizations where inequities devaluing TGD people and experiences are embedded in the organizational structure, including curriculum development and implementation. I provide recommendations for medical schools and stakeholders to align their formal, informal, and hidden curricula through practical means (e.g., incorporating TGD standardized patients throughout) and structural means (e.g. hiring and supporting TGD faculty across disciplines to assist with curriculum development and training), and argue for governing bodies to push back against legislative restriction and criminalization of TGD medical care. •Medical curricula can harm trans and gender diverse patients.•Medical school can be a hostile learning environment for gender diverse students.•Trans and gender diverse people and experiences are devalued in medical school.•Medical curricula need to increase trans and gender diverse inclusivity.•Organizational change should align formal, informal, and hidden medical curricula.