Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Monash University are currently conducting a research project to explore HIV and other STI prevention strategies specific to overseas-born trans and gender diverse (TGD) communities in Australia. This study will focus on this population as they recognise additional barriers faced by overseas-born TGD individuals to access sexual health services and prevention strategies in Australia. Some of these include:
- Socio-cultural stigma
- Language and English language proficiency
- Cost and Medicare ineligibility
- Perceived racism and transphobia from service providers
- General confusion around navigating the Australian healthcare system
- Competing priorities between gender-affirming care and sexual health care
Melbourne Sexual Health Centre and Monash University seek to further understand these barriers, and also explore opportunities to ensure that future HIV and other STI prevention strategies are inclusive of overseas-born TGD communities by incorporating their unique identities, lived and living experiences, and needs to ensure that no one is left behind to reach Australia's 2030 goal of a virtual elimination of HIV transmission.
This study has been approved by the Alfred Hospital Ethics Committee, Project Number 311/24.