Biomedical issues in transgender health research

Transgender is an umbrella term that refers to those individuals whose gender identity (i.e. the person’s internal sense of gender) differs from the sex assigned at birth. Although the main international institutions (e.g. World Health Organization) have included, among the priority objectives in the fight against inequalities in health, actions aimed at protecting transgender people, exposure to violence, stigma and discrimination is still high for this population, which favors the risk of inadequate healthcare. To date we do not know exactly how many transgender people there are, what their health status is or what health services they need, which poses a problem for health planning. Indeed, transgender people share many of the needs of the general population, but may have special needs, such as those related to gender-affirming hormone and/or surgical treatments. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the main health issues of the transgender population with particular attention to the Italian scenario.