Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Athletic Trainers: Collegiate Student-Athletes' Perceptions

Abstract

Context Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) athletic trainers (ATs) face uncertain acceptance in the workplace. Objective To examine the perceptions of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) student-athletes toward ATs who identified as LGBTQ. Design Cross-sectional design. Setting Web-based survey. Patients or Other Participants A total of 623 (males = 212, females = 403, other = 8; age = 19.7 ± 1.4 years) NCAA student-athletes completed the survey. Main Outcome Measure(s) Participants completed a 19-item survey to assess their perceptions about the appropriateness of, quality of care from, and comfort with ATs who identified as LGBTQ. We asked 10 demographic questions and 2 questions regarding the student-athlete's exposure to individuals who identified as LGBTQ. Five matrix questions had 5 stems each to represent LGBTQ individuals on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and 2 open-ended questions elicited qualitative data. We analyzed characteristics of central tendency to evaluate the level of appropriateness, quality of care, and level of comfort perceived by student-athletes of ATs who identified as LGBTQ. We used Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests for post hoc analyses where appropriate. We used grounded theory to identify themes in the answers to the open-ended questions. Results Participants indicated they would seek health care and would feel comfortable approaching an AT who identified as LGBTQ. Participants agreed it was appropriate for an LGBTQ AT to work with both male and female sports and did not agree that health care provided by heterosexual and LGBTQ ATs differed. The open-ended responses revealed 4 themes: professionalism, upbringing, situational concerns, and concerns about specific populations that affected their perceptions. Conclusions In general, the NCAA student-athletes had positive perceptions of ATs who identified as LGBTQ.

Program Directors' and Athletic Training Students' Educational Experiences Regarding Patient-Centered Care and Transgender Patient Care

“…64,65 professional athletic training program curricula expansion related to gender minority patients have been found in the literature involve asking for a patient's pronouns, fostering a safe environment in the health care facility, listening to the patient, making shared decisions, maintaining patient privacy, using inclusive language, avoid homonegativity and heteronormativity, awareness of mental health needs, and being knowledgeable about local resources for inclusive health care providers. 31,33,34,69,70 Specifically for transgender patients, it is essential that professional athletic training curricula additionally incorporate the definition of transgender, misconceptions about advantages in sport, sport participation policies, health care disparities, barriers to care, gender-affirming language, preventative health care needs, mental health needs including gender dysphoria, gender-affirming care, and the long-term effects of various interventions. 31,34,39,69 When students are learning about health risks faced by the transgender population, they need to understand that an underlying cause of the health risks is not necessarily being transgender, but living as a transgender person in a homophobic society.…”

Attitudes of registered physiotherapists toward people identifying as lesbian, gay, and bisexual: A cross-sectional survey

“…27,28 Thus, religious healthcare professionals have been known to exhibit more negative attitudes toward LGBT people. 27,29 Previous studies also support the association between the sexual orientation of healthcare providers and their attitudes toward LGB individuals, with healthcare professionals who identify themselves as heterosexuals reporting more negative implicit attitudes compared to sexual minority healthcare providers. 7,30 Further studies are required to explore how implicit and explicit attitudes toward people identifying themselves as LGB affect physiotherapy treatment quality.…”

Actitudes hacia la diversidad sexual en el deporte en estudiantes de educación secundaria (Secondary Education Students’ Attitudes toward Sexual Diversity in Sport)

“…En cuanto a las diferencias existentes entre las actitudes de los chicos y las chicas en la exposición de los datos ofrecidos por esta escala, se observa que son los chicos los que obtienen resultados de mayor magnitud, aunque hay que ser cautos debidos a los pequeños tamaños de efecto, apreciando diferencias significativas que se traducen en la exposición de actitudes más negativas o de mayor rechazo hacia el colectivo LGTBI. Dicho hallazgo coincide con las investigaciones llevadas a cabo en el ámbito deportivo por Gill et al (2006) y Piedra (20142016), con estudiantes universitarios cuyas carreras tienen una estrecha vinculación al deporte, o con las conclusiones realizadas por Crossway et al (2019), Ensign et al (2011) y Oswalt y Vargas (2013) con entrenadores. Esto podría ser explicado, entre otros aspectos, por las concepciones estereotipadas por las que se ha visto afectado el deporte (Barbero, 2003;Colás & Rodríguez, 2013), así como la mayor rigidez en los comportamientos impuestos hacia los chicos, fijados por la heteronormatividad y la mas-culinidad hegemónica propuesta en el ámbito deportivo a lo largo de la historia (Ayvazo & Sutherland, 2009;McCormack & Anderson, 2013;Moscoso & Piedra, 2019).…”

“…Sin embargo, en el ámbito europeo, varias investigaciones contemporáneas llevadas a cabo con estudiantes de EF (Moliner, Francisco & Aguirre, 2018) y con estudiantes del Grado Universitario de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte (Morrow & Gil, 2003;Piedra, et al, 2013;Silva, et al, 2018), arrojan datos alentadores sobre la manifestación de actitudes tolerantes hacia el colectivo LGTBI en el deporte. Esto mismo se ha manifestado tanto en el contexto americano (Crossway, Rogers, Nye, Games & Eberman, 2019;Cunningham & Pickett, 2018) como en el asiático (Tseng & Sum, 2017) en estudiantes atletas, aunque es preciso señalar que aún se observa la permanencia de ciertos atisbos de rechazo y discriminación por parte un reducido grupo de personas hacia formas sexuales no convencionales.…”