Abstract
This article examines the therapeutic itineraries of transgender people in a city in the Bahia countryside. Participants were selected using the “snowball” method using semi-structured interviews to produce the data. In the analysis of therapeutic itineraries three thematic categories emerged: 1) Locus of seeking health care: tracers of inequities in SUS; 2) Professional approach: reinforcing stigmas and interrupting the therapeutic relationship; and 3) Specific demands for care: mishaps along the therapeutic itinerary. Results showed that access to formal services was permeated by symbolic, technical and/or organizational barriers. Those barriers frequently transferred the responsibility for the search of alternative formal paths or the restoration of care upon the interviewees, by using trajectories oftentimes unsafe. The search for the private sector was predominant and, in parallel, there was a depreciation of SUS. The institutional stigma resulted in treatment abandonment, delay in looking for care or giving up seeking services. Finally, the difficulties in accessing the SUS produced inequities leading transgender people, especially the most vulnerable, to be exposed and to experiment with often-inadequate procedures.
Keywords:
Transgender people; Transsexuality; Access to health services; Comprehensive health care.
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