Talking About Your Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with Your Cancer Care Team

1. Talking About Your Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with Your Cancer Care Team Disclosing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity to Medical Team It gets easier when the individual shares information with their healthcare provider and cancer care team. Cancer care providers rarely ask about sexuality and related issues and sometimes the absence of details can lead to unwanted complications. Sharing personal details is a patient’s choice completely but not sharing the same will lead to complications including unanswered questions. When you frankly explain everything to your healthcare team, it helps in bridging the gap and building better relationships. This will help in finding a supportive healthcare team, and it leads to many benefits related to emotional well-being and physical health as well. Addressing such situations will help your cancer care team to make a better therapy plan for you. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity  Sexual orientation and gender identity are the two terms used to refer to the gender or genders an individual is attracted to. Basically, it is the fact of being homosexual, heterosexual, etc.

2. With respect to your cancer treatment, it is important to disclose your sexual identity with your cancer care team in order to get proper access to the relevant therapies. Moreover, explaining your wishes, desires, goals, and ideas to the doctor is necessary for the treatment of every chronic disease like cancer. This is because cancer treatment can significantly influence your personal and sexual life. Discussing sexual orientation with an unknown individual might not be as easy as it looks. However, not doing the same might lead to unwanted complications.    Discussing with your Cancer Care Team For better treatment and facilities, make sure to inform your healthcare team about your sexual orientation and gender identity in the following manner.  Discuss your sexual orientation with your doctor before you go for diagnostic tests or physical exams for cancer. Explain your gender and sexual identity clearly while introducing yourself to the healthcare team.  Make your doctor aware of pronouns you use to introduce yourself to others so that the healthcare team also considers them.  If you go for a checkup, follow-up, or test with your partner, introduce your partner to the healthcare team so that the doctor and other members get to know your relationship with your partner and consider the same while addressing both of you in further meetings. Apart from that, finding the right cancer care team that is supportive and respects your sexual identity is a big task. This can be, however, done in the first appointment. Source: http://writeus.me/talking-about-your-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-with-your- cancer-care-team/