Society as a whole assumes that a person's gender is unambiguous and unchangeable. In other words, it is assumed that a person is either male or female and that gender is innate and cannot be changed. The German healthcare system is also sometimes based on these ideas.
However, some people have physical characteristics that do not fit into the binary social norm of female and male (intersexuality; alternatively referred to as intersexuality or variants of gender development or inter*). The characteristics can be genetic, hormonal or anatomical. Other people feel that they belong to a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth (transsexuality, transsexuality, transidentity, trans*, non-binary trans(*), trans).
Inter* and trans people are not only socially marginalized: They have less access to resources, recognition and security, which can make them ill in the long term. Some English-language studies already point out that they often do not receive needs-based care in the healthcare system either and experience discrimination in doctors' surgeries, hospitals or other medical facilities.
To date, little is known about the experiences of inter* and trans people in mainstream healthcare. Standard healthcare includes preventive and check-up examinations, therapeutic, rehabilitative and curative measures, as well as aftercare and palliative treatments. So far, there is no data on this from German-speaking countries.
