Asexual competent practices in healthcare: A narrative review

Abstract

Introduction

Asexuals present at health services with unique needs, yet providers typically lack training to care for this population. This narrative review aims to inform providers on best methods of asexual care.

Methods

Search terms included “asexuality” and “health.” Abstracts were screened against inclusion criteria, yielding 987 articles. After full-text screening, 44 papers were included.

Results

Pathologization, microaggressions, lack of awareness, and institutional neglect pose challenges to asexuals seeking care. Providers can improve asexual care by affirming identity, taking asexual-specific approaches, educating themselves, challenging biases, and fighting for institutional-level changes.

Conclusion

These findings may guide practitioners in developing asexual-competent practices.

Keywords:

• Asexual
• competent care
• LGBTQ health
• sexuality
• depathologization

Ethics statement

No institutional approval was required or obtained.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

As this is a systematic review, the authors do not hold access to any individual study’s data beyond what is publicly available in the published article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Toronto Excellence Award (UTEA) received by Stella Schneckenburger.