TranZnation - a report on the health and wellbeing of transgendered people in Australia and New Zealand

Studies investigating health and wellbeing of transgender people have typically been conducted in medical environments such as gender clinics and through sexual health centres. One of the primary concerns of transgender people is recognition of their gender status which is often difficult to achieve in ordinary medical practices. This research has its beginnings in an act of transgender activism, arising out of dissatisfaction with the capacity of the 2005 Private Lives project to capture the complexity of transgender lives. A central pivot in the concerns of the transgender communities about health services is that of recognition. Practices of medicine are implicated in many of the attempts by transgender people to achieve positive health and self- and social recognition for their preferred gender. Additionally, recognition on formal documentary records is, in many cases, dependent upon certified medical intervention.