Background: Many equity-deserving populations utilize the emergency department (ED) as they lack access to primary health care. Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people are one of those populations. Despite improving rights for TGD people in Canada, transphobia, trans-hate, and cis-normativity are rising in the country. The literature shows that TGD people avoid the ED due to previous experiences of oppression within the health care system. The current state of science supports the need for health care providers (HCPs) to receive more education on the experiences of TGD patients.

Methods: A narrative literature review was utilized to synthesize best practices for accurately assessing and documenting the gender identity (GI) of patients who present to the ED.

Findings: The literature recommends that HCPs include GI in their documentation and electronic patient records; however, this frequently does not occur. Without acknowledging, affirming, and documenting patients' GI, ED HCPs perpetuate existing discrimination and miss key information by not accurately accounting for their TGD patients' identities. This poster will present the literature review’s implications (importance of documenting GI, how questions about GI are asked by HCPs, patient and HCP comfort with GI questions, and the preferred method of asking GI questions) and recommendations (a two-step questionnaire that asks about sex assigned at birth and gender identity).

Conclusion: HCPs must work to improve equity for their patients, especially for TGD patients. To work towards addressing health inequities, the medical community must first accurately acknowledge and affirm diverse identities. The first step is a two-step questionnaire.