Access to health care among travesti/trans people in Rosario: an approach to tensions in health care processes and health policies

Abstract

Access to health care for travesti/trans people is one of the main issues in the current agendas of governments and the LGBTI+ political movement. In this article, we analyze access to health care for travesti/trans community in the city of Rosario (2019), based on the results of an ethnographic research carried out among users and health professionals of the local health care network. From a relational approach, we aim to account for both perspectives and the interactions that emerge from that encounter. This article highlights Rosario’s health care system structured under the principles of Primary Health Care, and the organization of the institutional response aimed at travesti/trans people regarding a “specialized consulting room”. In the conclusions we discuss the differences between "universal care" and "focused/differentiated care" and highlight the importance of peer networks as a structuring axis of care processes, the transaction of knowledge between doctor/patients and some considerations about the role of training.