?An (Im)Patient Population?: Waiting Experiences of Transgender Patients at Healthcare Services in Buenos Aires

MARÍA VICTORIA TISEYRA; SANTIAGO MORCILLO; JULIÁN ORTEGA; MARIO PECHENY; MARINE GÁLVEZ

Immobility and Medicine.

Palgrave Macmillan

Lugar: Singapur; Año: 2021; p. 61 - 83

The experience and periods of waiting have mainly been described negatively and analysed quantitatively. Despite the recognition and value of these kind of studies, this chapter we focused on a qualitative approach to explore and analyse waiting experiences that transgender patients undergo in order to access to Argentinean public health services. This exploratory investigation is based on in-depth interviews with transgender patients, doctors who serve this community, and observations in two large public hospitals in Buenos Aires. In order to reach a deeper understanding of significant elements and dimensions of that experience, we analysed the transgender interviewees? narrative descriptions of the ?scenes? of waiting. Scenes, as Vera Paiva (Vulnerabilidade e direitos humanos. Prevenção e promoção da saúde: Vol. I. Da doença a cidadania. Jurúa, San Pablo, SP, Chap. 8, 2012) points out, allow us to understand the analysis of power dynamics between subjects and institutions. Therefore, this chapter aims to show how the mainstream biomedical gaze in hospitals and gender inequalities inform the waiting experience of transgender people in public healthcare facilities creating different temporalities.