LGBTQ+ people across the U.S. are facing bigger challenges than ever before in obtaining necessary and competent healthcare, but students at one nursing school want to change that. After successfully piloting a new course focused on “affirming and inclusive” LGBTQ+ health this spring, NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing announced this week that the course will be offered as an elective to all students in the fall 2022 semester. The course will be taught by clinical assistant professor Jeff Day, who is also a nurse practitioner at Mt. Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. In a press release from the college, Day said he was approached by students in 2019 who were interested in learning more about health issues specific to LGBTQ+ communities, and pushed for the course’s development. “While ideally LGBTQ+ content would be woven throughout the entire nursing curriculum, we recognized that this amount of change takes time,” Day explained, “so we developed an elective course to help fill the gap in LGBTQ+ educational content.” The school says Day’s course will cover the history of LGBTQ+ health, endemic physical and mental health issues, and significant laws and policies that govern care for LGBTQ+ people. When asked by Them how the course would specifically address the needs of trans patients, Day responded via email that “[g]iven recent attacks on transgender rights, it is more important than ever to educate frontline healthcare workers to deliver competent, gender-affirming care.” “Drawing upon my own experience caring for transgender patients, and with the input of guest lecturers, this course will lay the foundation for new nurses by providing information ranging from the use of inclusive language, uncovering implicit biases, and meeting the unique medical, surgical, mental health, and reproductive needs of transgender patients,” Day wrote.