How Dental Teams Can Close the Gap in Transgender Oral Health

As of February 2025, the transgender population makes up roughly 2.3 million or 1% of the United States population.¹ As this population grows, oral health professionals are responsible for fostering respectful, affirming, and culturally competent care, which, ultimately, may lead to higher treatment adherence and overall better oral health outcomes.^2,3

Transgender is an umbrella term for those who do not identify with their sex assigned at birth but rather choose their own gender identity. Gender identity refers to people’s individual feelings of gender and how they choose to identify and/or express those feelings. The transgender community includes trans men, trans women, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and gender queer. Trans men (or trans masc) refer to those who were assigned as female at birth but identify as male. Trans women (or trans femme) refer to those assigned at birth as male but identify as female.⁴ Table 1 provides definitions.^4-6

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* References and figures can be found in the original article via the link above.