Is Your Organization Prepared to Meet the Needs of Gender Nonbinary Patients?

​Many healthcare providers do not know how to interact with gender nonbinary patients, nor are they able to address these individuals' unique barriers to care, according to the authors of a December 20, 2018, perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine. The gender of nonbinary individuals is "neither male nor female," being "outside the boundaries of a strict male–female dichotomy," the authors said. Many transgender individuals—those whose gender identity does not match the one they were assigned at birth—are also gender nonbinary, but not all are, the authors said. Although identifying as nonbinary is becoming more common, this group remains at risk. Gender-minority persons (which include transgender and gender nonbinary individuals) are more likely to live in poverty, be unemployed, be uninsured, be the victim of intimate-partner violence, attempt suicide, experience severe psychological distress in the month before seeking help, and have HIV infection.