Medical records should accurately identify LGBTQ Canadians: advocates – GLOBAL

July 6, 2023

Correcting health-care providers who typically assume he’s heterosexual gets tiring for Jeremy Long, who wants his queer identity to be acknowledged and counted in electronic health records.

“It’s taxing on a person’s mental health and their ability to be understood by the world and to have to constantly feel like it’s a piece of the fight of coming out again and again, which can be retraumatizing,” the 38-year-old said from Vancouver.

“People aren’t always asking questions that lead to more understanding. They’re just labelling and so to have to correct that, it feels exhausting,” Long said.

Long, who came out at age 15, said LGBTQ patients should be asked appropriate questions instead of sometimes facing judgment and feeling unsafe when they access care.

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/9814306/lgbtq-medical-records-canada/