Measuring Explicit Prejudice and Transphobia in Nursing Students and Professionals

Trans* people frequently report attitudes of prejudice/transphobia in health professionals. Conversely, health professionals indicate the lack of adequate training to care for these people and its impact on the quality of care provided.

Our objective was to evaluate the explicit prejudices/transphobia of health students and professionals and compare them with the general population in Tenerife.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out with the Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS) and the Negative Attitude towards Trans* people Scale (EANT) with a total of 602 participants.

We found a low mean level of explicit prejudice/transphobia, with little/no differences between occupation groups. Explicit transphobia was correlated with being a man, less educated, and heterosexual, and not personally knowing a trans* person. Men and women were less transphobic about trans* people whose identities coincided with their own.

All participants showed a low mean level of explicit transphobia. This result is not incompatible with unconscious prejudice, which may translate to discriminatory behaviors. Interventions to change negative attitudes are still needed, since even a small percentage of transphobic health professionals could exert a considerable negative impact on health care. In professionals without transphobic attitudes, the barriers identified by trans* people might be a problem due to the lack of specific training.