'Don't think that we die from AIDS': Invisibilised uncertainty and global transgender health. Issue 1 (18th October 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Farber, Reya
• Is Part Of: Sociology of health & illness. Volume 45:Issue 1(2023)
• Page Start: 196
• Page End: 212
• Publication Date: 2022-10-18
• Subjects: clinical research -- gender -- global health -- medical uncertainty -- Thailand -- transgender health; Social medicine -- Periodicals; 301.5
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13563
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9889

Abstract

Abstract: The invisibilisation of social groups in health research and survey data is a source of medical uncertainty, long seen as a hallmark of the medical field. However, scholarship has not thoroughly assessed how medical uncertainty is structured by state‐level processes and global health agendas, especially for people beyond the Global North. This article introduces invisibilised uncertainty as a type of medical uncertainty structured by global organisational and state‐level priorities, which can invisibilise social groups and health problems from research and data collection, exacerbating medical uncertainty and health disparities for people worldwide. Based on 14 months of fieldwork in Thailand and in‐depth interviews with 62 participants, the article illuminates how state‐level processes and global clinical research agendas have structured knowledge gaps and uncertainties for Thai transgender women. As omissions in health research and data collection become embodied on a world scale, the article expands our understandings of how gendered health disparities are structured nationally and globally. It advances a sociology of medical ignorance by analysing the uneven landscape of holistic transgender health research, parsing how institutional dynamics can prioritise or invisibilise people and health issues in research and data, and structure uncertainties.