AI for Inclusive Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges in Transgender Health Access and Equity

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare systems at breakneck speed, and there is potential for increased access, efficiency, and individualization. For the transgender community, who are generally subject to systemic discrimination, avoidance of healthcare, and provider incompetence, there is both opportunity and threat associated with AI. This paper critiques the use of AI to achieve inclusive healthcare access for the transgender population. It emphasizes the promise of AI to detect health disparities by analyzing large datasets, enabling gender-affirming care, improving clinician education, and providing individualized, accessible digital services via virtual assistants and chatbots. The paper also discusses some of the critical issues around algorithmic bias, non-representative datasets, data privacy, and the limitations of AI in supplanting human empathy. Basing its arguments on recent empirical studies, it highlights the importance of ethical AI regulation, community-led data practices, and community-focused design in creating AI instruments for marginalized groups. Finally, it posits that AI, if implemented wisely, holds potential to become a catalytic tool to decrease gaps and build up the right to health among transgender people.