2025 Theses Doctoral

Investigating the Lived Experience of Asexual Identifying Individuals Navigating Healthcare

Meera, Mohima

Historically, health services have pathologized individuals because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, which contributes to avoiding or delaying seeking care and consequent later-stage diagnoses when many treatments are less effective. One determinant of seeking health care is the extent to which people feel accepted and welcome by health care providers. In recent years, progress has been made in some settings by improving patient experiences among people with different sexual orientations and gender identities. But there are few published studies on the healthcare experiences of people who identify with asexuality.

This exploratory study aims to understand asexual (ace) individuals' experiences to inform ways to improve patient experience and health promotion. Grounded in phenomenological theory, a semi-structured qualitative interview was conducted via Zoom with 43 ace participants recruited from social media platforms. Through reflexive thematic analysis, it was concluded: (1) The continued lack of knowledge and understanding of asexuality and influence of compulsory sexuality in healthcare results in non-affirmative approaches to care, which negatively impacts ace patients’ healthcare experience, (2) Patients report having positive healthcare experiences with providers who exercised cultural competency and humility, providing care in a patient-centered, trauma-informed approach, and (3) Institutional factors drive patients’ overall healthcare experience.

Implications of the findings and ideas for how healthcare practices and policies can be improved to be welcoming to ace patients are discussed. More empirical research is needed to understand the health needs of the ace community, with the long-term goal of improving the availability and accessibility of healthcare services.