Transgender Women Face Inadequate Health Care, 'Shocking' HIV Rates

NPR Staff

Jul 27, 2015

Save Article

Failed to save article

Please try again

(Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images)

Transgender people are not getting adequate health care, and widespread discrimination is largely to blame, according to a recent World Health Organization report. And the story is told most starkly in the high rates of HIV among transgender women worldwide.

JoAnne Keatley, one of the authors of that study, puts it plainly.

"Just shocking rates," she tells NPR's Arun Rath. "There was a recent meta-analysis demonstrating that a transgender woman was 49 times as likely to be living with HIV [than the general population] in 15 countries in which data was looked at and analyzed."

Only 15 countries offered available, laboratory-confirmed data on HIV prevalence among transgender people — and no countries from Eastern Europe or Africa had released such information by the time the WHO report was compiled. Yet, in the available data, another number one stood out: Among sex workers, transgender women are nine times likelier to have HIV than their non-transgender counterparts.

Keatley, who is a transgender woman herself, works with the Center for Excellence for Transgender Health at UC San Francisco. And she explains that, behind the bleak statistics, widespread discrimination lurks at the root of this HIV prevalence.

Interview Highlights

On the ways that prejudice complicates how these HIV cases are treated

Sponsored

It's a daunting task. I think that it's not all bleak; I think we are making progress. For example, the recent publication of the World Health Organization policy brief, "Transgender People and HIV," which really is an attempt at educating health ministries and governments, so that health organizations will have some clarity around who the population is and what makes them distinct from other sexual and gender minorities.

Complete transcript :

ARUN RATH, HOST:

Transgender people are not getting adequate health care, and widespread discrimination is largely to blame. That's one of the findings of a recent World Health Organization report detailing alarming rates of HIV in transgender people worldwide. JoAnne Keatley is one of the report's authors.

JOANNE KEATLEY: We know that trans women are impacted by HIV and AIDS disproportionately - just shocking rates. There was a recent meta-analysis demonstrating that a transgender woman was 49 times as likely to be living with HIV in 15 countries in which data was looked at and analyzed. And so that data point was really quite shocking for us.

RATH: And obviously, transgender individuals face, in a lot of different places, not just prejudice, but violence for who they are. I have to imagine that must complicate things for health officials that are trying to get a handle on HIV cases globally.

KEATLEY: It complicates things for health officials, but not as much as it complicates things for trans people themselves. Trans people are subjected to horrific rates of violence. Transphobia is alive and well in many societies around the globe. And we see it play out in terms of physical and verbal violence, as well as denial of employment or education or, you know, familial support.

RATH: Can you run through some of the reasons why transgender individuals are at more risk for HIV?

KEATLEY: Well, I think a lot of it is stigma-driven. Trans people struggle in order to obtain identity documents that then allow them to participate in the workforce. Many trans people are not able to obtain health coverage. Often, trans women have to rely on industries such as the sex work industry, and so, you know, that comes along with a lot of additional kind of stigma from criminal justice. What is driving the epidemic is really the refusal, I would say, of governments to pass legislation that allows them to function in society and allows them to participate in the workplace.

RATH: I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but isn't that a rather tall order? If you need to improve fundamental conditions -- you know, basic rights -- for a group of people kind of across the board before HIV rates improve, that seems pretty difficult.

KEATLEY: Well, you're right. It's a daunting task. I think that it's not all bleak. I think we are making progress. For example, the recent publication of the World Health Organization policy brief "Transgender People And HIV," which really is an attempt at educating health ministries and governments so that health organizations will have some clarity around who the population is and what makes them distinct from other sexual and gender minorities.

RATH: JoAnne Keatley of the University of California in San Francisco. She's one of the authors of the newly released World Health Organization report on high rates of HIV among transgender people worldwide. JoAnne, thanks very much.

KEATLEY: Thank you for having me.