There’s nothing new about the RMA Network’s commitment to supporting LGBTQ+ community members. We’ve created hundreds of LGBTQ+ families, stand in partnership with LGBTQ+ organizations, and support our patients and team from the LGBTQ+ community. Our expertise on LGBTQ+ fertility drives us to continually improve our professional education on the subject. We know that new information on supporting our LGBTQ+ patients emerges each year. No fertility center can assume that training from five years ago will suffice; we’re committed to ongoing education for everyone on our team.
That’s why the RMA Network recently completed our first LGBTQ+ competency training for 2022. Transgender parent and educator Trystan Reese facilitated a workshop for over 100 RMA employees across the country, designed to ensure that every prospective patient who walks through our doors knows how fully understood, supported, and welcomed when they are with us.
Our team learned the most up-to-date information on shifts in language and identity within the LGBTQ+ community and what new family-building barriers have emerged since the COVID-19 pandemic. The training covered The Williams Institute’s data showing that LGBTQ+ Americans have been more likely to lose their jobs due to the pandemic, which has profoundly impacted the ability of many community members to pursue family-building activities.
While these stories aren’t new, the RMA team heard stories about common incidents of unintentional bias in fertility spaces, such as providers making assumptions about the gender of patients’ partners (or assuming that a patient’s wife is her sister). As RMA continues to diversify our team make-up, employees also had the opportunity to practice acts of allyship with each other– ensuring that our LGBTQ+ team members feel validated and safe in the workplace.
Concentric circles of inclusion:
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