Development of an affirming and customizable electronic survey of sexual and reproductive health experiences for transgender and gender nonbinary people.

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science
    • Subject Terms:
      Surveys and Questionnaires*; Contraception Behavior/*statistics & numerical data ; Sexism/*statistics & numerical data ; Sexual and Gender Minorities/*statistics & numerical data; Female ; Health Services Accessibility ; Humans ; Internet ; Male ; Pregnancy ; Qualitative Research ; Reproductive Health ; Reproductive Health Services ; Sexism/psychology ; Sexual and Gender Minorities/psychology
    • Abstract:
      To address pervasive measurement biases in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) research, our interdisciplinary team created an affirming, customizable electronic survey to measure experiences with contraceptive use, pregnancy, and abortion for transgender and gender nonbinary people assigned female or intersex at birth and cisgender sexual minority women. Between May 2018 and April 2019, we developed a questionnaire with 328 items across 10 domains including gender identity; language used for sexual and reproductive anatomy and events; gender affirmation process history; sexual orientation and sexual activity; contraceptive use and preferences; pregnancy history and desires; abortion history and preferences; priorities for sexual and reproductive health care; family building experiences; and sociodemographic characteristics. Recognizing that the words people use for their sexual and reproductive anatomy can vary, we programmed the survey to allow participants to input the words they use to describe their bodies, and then used those customized words to replace traditional medical terms throughout the survey. This process-oriented paper aims to describe the rationale for and collaborative development of an affirming, customizable survey of the SRH needs and experiences of sexual and gender minorities, and to present summary demographic characteristics of 3,110 people who completed the survey. We also present data on usage of customizable words, and offer the full text of the survey, as well as code for programming the survey and cleaning the data, for others to use directly or as guidelines for how to measure SRH outcomes with greater sensitivity to gender diversity and a range of sexual orientations.
      Competing Interests: AK, AR, AS, BLL, EG, HM, JH, JOM, LC, LF, LL, and MD received salary, stipend, or consulting fees from Ibis Reproductive Health via funds provided by the Society of Family Planning in a research grant (SFPRF11-II1) to HM. In addition, JOM received a one-time honorarium from Sage Therapeutics for a one-day advisory board role in May 2017, and consulted for health care provision training with Hims Inc. in 2020. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
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    • Grant Information:
      K12 DK111028 United States DK NIDDK NIH HHS; K23 DA039800 United States DA NIDA NIH HHS
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20200505 Date Completed: 20200727 Latest Revision: 20240329
    • Publication Date:
      20240329
    • Accession Number:
      PMC7197812
    • Accession Number:
      10.1371/journal.pone.0232154
    • Accession Number:
      32365110