The University of Nebraska has released the “Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Resource Guide,” a publication designed to provide guidance in dealing respectfully with transgender and gender nonconforming members of the university community.
“This guide is important because it serves as a great resource for transgender and gender non-conforming related issues at UNMC,” said Aileen Warren, assistant vice chancellor for human resources. “Providing this resource and information helps to further create an environment where everyone feels valued, appreciated and included in the UNMC community.”
According to the 2015 survey in the American Journal of Public Health, heterosexual (cisgender) health care providers demonstrate implicit bias against lesbian and gay people. In a nationwide survey that same year, 33 percent of transgender individuals reported having a negative experience with their health care provider.
Lisa Rucks, Ph.D., an associate professor and research scientist in the UNMC Department of Pathology and Microbiology, said that as a member of the UNMC LGBTQ+ Employee Alliance, she is pleased to see the university acting to increase inclusivity across its statewide campus.
“It says that the idea of inclusivity and promoting diversity are not just words that you see on a website,” she said. “Putting together this handbook and making it relatively accessible hallmarks this as being important to the university culture as a whole.”
The handbook highlights resources available to the LGBTQ+ community at the University of Nebraska but is useful to all members of the community, she said.
“It’s also important for those of us who identify as cisgender and heterosexual to understand that these resources are available,” she said. “A lot of us get caught in our own perspective, whatever that is, and we tend not to think beyond that. For students, especially students within the health professions, and even faculty who are teaching them, we need to be open-minded that there are more experiences out there than our own personal experience.”
Although the handbook is relatively short, its existence “speaks volumes,” Dr. Rucks said. “The university is trying to more supportive of folks who have felt marginalized for a long time.”
Dele Davies, M.D., senior vice chancellor of academic affairs and a member of UNMC’s Inclusivity Committee, called the resource guide a welcome development.
“This guide will be a very important source of information to support the LGBTQ+ community at the university,” he said. “It demonstrates the University of Nebraska’s ongoing commitment to ensuring a welcoming culture for diverse faculty, students and employees throughout the system.”
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