Grant: Pr.Gr.- PA: Sex/Gend. in Health Res.- Sex/gender sci. health equity pri. Comm.

A common recommended remedy to medical misinformation is to consult an expert such as a doctor or nurse. However, while clinicians have specialized training, they are not immune to misinformation themselves. Clinician vaccine beliefs, for example, have been documented to reflect the hesitancy found in the general population. While gender affirming healthcare for trans and gender expansive (TGE) populations has never been well integrated into clinical training, the current political backlash against gender affirming healthcare puts TGE populations at high risk of being given misinformation by the very people who should be helping. This mixed method study aims to conduct in-depth interviews with a group of TGE people about their experiences with clinician-provided misinformation, and then to survey a larger group of both TGE people and cisgender (non-transgender) men and women of similar ages and locations about their experiences receiving information on a variety of topics from clinicians. By estimating how common it is for TGE people to receive misinformation from clinicians, understanding the ways this can impact their health and well-being, and exploring the ways geography impacts these experiences, we expect to be able to inform interventions to improve clinician awareness of this problem, as well as of standards of care for TGE people in Canada.