ACADEMIA Letters Times and Terms: Teaching anatomy that is inclusive and respectful of LGBTQ patients Lis Regula, University of Dayton In the twenty-frst century, we have seen a sharp rise in the number of LGBTQ individuals who are open about their identity and their experience (Jones, 2018). This is due to a number of factors, including increased awareness and acceptance, as well as improved laws protecting LGBTQ individuals from discrimination (Witek, 2014). In 2021, however, we have seen a vast uptick in the number of anti-LGBTQ and discriminatory laws being pushed across the country, which takes its toll on mental health for folks in the LGBTQ community (Horne et al., 2021). This is, in part, a reaction to the progress and increased lived equality that people in the LGBTQ community experience in many ways today, and bigots trying to retain their sense of power as all signs point to the loss of that power, as well as rural resentment (Boso, 2019). This, on top of the detrimental mental health efects of the pandemic, which disproportionately impact the LGBTQ population (Moore et al., 2021), points to the critical need to fnd ways to support and care for those in need of health care in an empathetic manner. We know that the correct use of pronouns and referring to trans people accurately is one way to show the respect that all people deserve. This, and other measures to treat LGBTQ people, especially trans people, as full members of societies and not enact microaggressions on them is not only the right thing to do ethically, but also reduces suicides (Kia et al., 2021). A bio-essentialist paradigm which states that the physical body sets limits on the cultural and social infuence on a person (DeLamater and Hyde, 1998) is often used as a de facto defense of anti-trans language, even if it is not explicitly invoked (Wilton et al., 2019). Within the sciences, this has been used to assert that the sex and gender are two diferent things and that sex is somehow the reality, even for transgender individuals (Haig, 2004). In this context, gender is described as a social construct and sex a physical construct (Diamond, 2002), ignoring the facts that 1) it is humans who have decided what constitutes sex in the Academia Letters, August 2021 Corresponding Author: Lis Regula, lkregula@gmail.com Citation: Regula, L. (2021). Times and Terms: Teaching anatomy that is inclusive and respectful of LGBTQ patients. Academia Letters, Article 2940. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2940. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0