Ms. Maya Nashva Lyon Taylor graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Public Health and Asian Studies and a minor in Spanish. In her time as a student, she was a Research Assistant in Dr. Gilbert Gonzales’ LGBTQ+ health laboratory. Ms. Taylor’s specific interest in the health of bisexual folks, like herself, led her to study how having a same-sex or opposite-sex partner could impact the mental health, physical health, and substance use of bi+ folks across the United States. Under Dr. Gonzales’ mentorship, Ms. Taylor published a paper that encapsulated this work entitled, “Health Disparities Among Women by Sexual Orientation Identity and Same-Sex or Different-Sex Cohabiting Partnership Status” in the journal Women’s Health Issues.
While taking a semester to study in Delhi, Ms. Taylor began studying how the 2019 Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act mandating folks to get surgery in order to change their legal gender marker was affecting trans and other gender diverse folk in India. She spoke to several trans activists and medical providers and documented their experiences. Ms. Taylor plans to continue and expand this work during her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. In the last year of college, Ms. Taylor wrote a thesis applying medical sociology theories of historical trauma to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. As a part of her thesis, she wrote a short story about an Indian doctor treating patients dying of HIV/AIDS in New York City whose physician parents lived through the Partition and participated in mass sterilization campaigns of the Emergency era. After graduation, Ms. Taylor worked as a Health Educator at the Center on Halsted, a social service agency in Chicago, providing HIV testing, PrEP Navigation, and Care Coordination for her clients in English and Spanish. In her free time, Ms. Taylor loves to try cooking new dishes, playing instruments, and going for hikes.
Under the 2019 Transgender Person’s (Protection of Rights) Act, discrimination against trans people is criminalized. Despite these protections, the Act requires trans/gender diverse Indians to undergo surgery before they can legally change their gender. This study aims to determine how the Act impacts the health of transgender communities by investigating how legal documentation of gender shapes access to health resources, how healthcare providers are held accountable for providing high quality gender-affirming care, how trans and gender diverse people hope to change this Act to better reflect their needs, and how this Act impacts gender diverse visibility in society.