A Survey on the COVID-19 Awareness and Vaccination Acceptance/Hesitance Among the Transgender Population in Various Districts of Tamilnadu.

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has been deemed as one of the biggest global health crisis. The pandemic has caused a landslide in governance, economics, health care systems, and the daily lifestyle of man for the past 2 years. One of the chief weapons installed by various governments worldwide was the rapid development of an efficient vaccine to combat the disease. This study aims to identify the awareness of COVID 19 and seeks to find the challenges faced by the community in vaccination. This study hypothesized the presence of a multifaceted issue among the transgender populations' hesitance to vaccination. The results from the study could be exploited by the policy makers of the government to provide policies that best alleviate the hesitance among the transgender population.

Material and Methods: This study is a cross sectional questionnaire based study. A total of 121 transgender people above the age of 18 years who were voluntarily willing for the study were included in the study, while excluding the male and female participants and those transgender participants who were unwilling for the study.

Results and Discussion: A 100% response regarding COVID-19 awareness from the 121 participants showed exemplary reach to the population. With 76% of individuals being vaccinated, the acceptance of the vaccine and reach of the vaccine was high. COVID-19 awareness has reached the people from all walks of life. With little tweaks to the current policies, India could achieve absolute vaccination against the pandemic.